over her throat and cheeks.

"Well?" she asked, and the note of challenge was a trifle more audible
in her quiet voice. And since he was challenged, Hillyard answered:

"He is a German spy."

The words smote upon all in the room like a blow. Joan herself grew
pale. Then she replied:

"People say that nowadays of every foreigner."

The moment of embarrassment was prolonged to a full minute--during which
no one spoke. Then to the relief of every one, Sir Chichester Splay
entered the hall. He had been sitting all day upon the Bench. He had to
attend the Flower Show in Chichester during the next week. Really the
life of a country notable was a dog's life.

"You are going to make a speech at Chichester, Sir Christopher?" Jupp
inquired.

"Oh no, my boy," replied Sir Chichester. "Make a speech indeed! And in
this weather! Nothing would induce me. Me for the back benches, as our
cousins across the Atlantic would say."

He spoke pompously, yet with a certain gratification as though Harold
Jupp had asked him to dignify the occasion with a speech.

"Have the evening papers not arrived yet?" he asked, looking with
suspicious eyes on Dennis Brown.

"No, I am not sitting on them this time," said Dennis.

"And Colonel Luttrell?"

After the evening papers, Sir Chichester thought politely of his guests.
Millie Splay replied with hesitation. While the others of the company
were shaking off their embarrassment, she was sinking deeper into hers.

"Colonel Luttrell has not come yet. Nor--nor--the other guest who
completes our party."

Her voice trailed off lamentably into a plea for kind treatment and
gentleness. Here was Millie Splay's second preoccupation. As it was Sir
Chichester's passion to see his name printed in the papers, so it was
Millie's to gather in the personages of the moment under her roof. She
had promised that this party should be just a small one of old friends
with Luttrell as the only new-comer. But personages were difficult to
come by at this date, since they were either deep in work or out of the
country altogether. They had to be brought down by a snap shot, and very
often the bird brought down turned out to be a remarkably inferior
specimen of his class. Millie Splay had been tempted and had fallen; and
she was not altogether easy about the quality of her bird, now on its
descent to her feet.

"I didn't know any one else was coming," said Sir Chichester, who really
didn't care how much Lady Splay