e she spread her handkerchief upon her lap, distending every
corner in ostentatious preparation for her feast."

"Talking to him meanwhile?"

"Yes, _par parenthese_--between the nibbles at a chocolate bouchee, an
anchovy muffin, two biscuits, and a tartine."

"My good Sarah, it is scarcely hospitable to register the appetites of
your guests."

"I was really burning to hear them talk, but Percy Vansittart
buttonholed me to say the muffiniere had run short of supplies. We rang
for a fresh consignment, then more music was proposed. I induced Vaudin
to sing those exquisite verses of Philip's--about the poet's tears, you
know, which froze to pearls on the neck of the woman he loved."

"Just the thing to annoy Lorraine!"

"He ought to have been highly flattered. At the end of the song," Sarah
pursued, "people began to go, and I thought I would take a seat in their
direction without disturbing the conversation."

"In fact you played the eavesdropper?"

"I merely wanted to catch some stray sentence as guide to the situation.
Had I felt _de trop_ I should have moved. I approached cautiously and
affected to be busy with plates and dishes on a neighbouring table.
Philip's attitude was full of interest--he was intent on some argument
apparently.

"'I believe a pin is the orthodox weapon,' I heard him saying with
questioning eagerness; to which Clair replied, 'Take my advice next time
and try a darning-needle.'

"A darning-needle! My curiosity was aroused, and, as the subject seemed
to admit of invasion I adroitly wedged in.

"'A darning-needle? for what?'

"'Oh,' she exclaimed with _empressement_, 'we were talking
of periwinkles--discussing the efficacy of pins _versus_
darning-needles--what do you say?'"

II.

After the routing of my sister Sarah, I should have given up interest in
her proceedings had not a letter from Clair reached me. It referred to a
commission for book illustrations that I had secured for her. From this
she volunteered her own patch of information--a crudely-contrastive one,
but not without its value in the harmonious scheme.

"To-day," she wrote, "I was introduced to your _rara avis_, Philip
Lorraine. Lady Sargent cannot praise him enough. Continued praise of one
individual to another is boring, don't you think so? It is a moral
throwing of the gauntlet. Besides, I always suspect the dear creature of
designs. Something about her mode of introduction is Autolycus like; one
feels like a pe