cause I like it," replied Sir Chichester. "I am used to it, and I
like it. Unless I see my name in real print every morning, I have all
day the uncomfortable sensation that I am not properly dressed."

Millie Splay and the others round the table, with the exception of one
person, laughed. To that one person, Sir Chichester here turned
good-humouredly:

"All right, you can turn your nose up, Joan. It seems extraordinary to
you that I should like to see my name in print. I can tell you something
more extraordinary than that. The public likes it too. Just because I am
not a public character, every reference to me must be of an exclusively
personal kind. And that's just the sort of reference which the public
eats. It is much more thrilled by the simple announcement that a Sir
Chichester Splay, of whom it has never heard, has bought a new pair of
purple socks with white stripes than it would be by a full account of a
Cabinet crisis."

Once more the company laughed at Sir Chichester's apology for his
foible.

Lady Splay turned to Hillyard.

"And who is the ingenious man who discovered this way of keeping the
peace at Senga?"

Hillyard suddenly hesitated.

"A great friend of mine," he answered with his eyes on Millie Splay's
face. "He was with me at Oxford. A Captain Luttrell."

But it was clear almost at once that the name had no associations in
Lady Splay's mind. She preferred to entertain her friends in the country
than to live in town. She knew little of what gossip might run the
streets of London; and since Luttrell was, as yet, like Sir Chichester,
in that he was not a public character, there had been no wide-run gossip
about Stella Croyle or himself which Millicent Splay was likely to meet.

Hillyard thought at first, that with a woman's self-control she turned a
blank face to him of a set purpose. But one little movement of hers
reassured him. Her eyes turned towards Joan Whitworth, as though asking
whether this Harry Luttrell was a match for her, and she said:

"You must bring your friend down to see us, when he comes back to
England. We are almost acquainted as it is."

No! Millicent Splay did not connect Harry Luttrell with Stella Croyle.
It would have been better if Hillyard, that very night, had enlightened
her. But he was neither a gossip nor a meddler. It was not possible that
he should.

CHAPTER X

THE SUMMONS

It is curious to recollect how smoothly the surface water ran during
that