r wits and used her beauty! Stella Croyle ran down the stairs
like a girl.

Jenny Prask shut the door, and, opening a wardrobe, took from a high
shelf Mrs. Croyle's dressing-bag. She opened it, and from one of the
fittings she lifted out a bottle. The bottle was quite full of a white,
colourless liquid. Jenny Prask nodded to herself and carefully put the
bottle back. There was very little she did not know about the
proceedings of her mistress. Then she went out of the room into the
gallery, and peeped down to watch the other guests assemble. She saw
Miranda Brown, Stella, Sir Chichester Splay, Dennis and Harry Luttrell
come from their different rooms and gather in the hall below. From a
passage behind her, a girl, butterfly-bright, flashed out and danced
joyously down the stairs. A new-comer, thought Jenny, with a pang of
alarm for her mistress! But she heard the new-comer speak, and heard her
spoken to. It was Joan Whitworth.

"Oh!" Jenny Prask gasped.

Undoubtedly Joan "hooked behind" to-night. What had come over her? Jenny
asked. Her quick mind realised that Mario Escobar was not answerable for
the change since Mario Escobar was miles away at Midhurst. Besides,
according to Mr. Harper, this flirtation with Escobar had been going on
a year and more.

Jenny Prask looked from Joan to Harry Luttrell. She saw them drawn to
one another across the hall and move into the dining-room side by side.
She turned back with a little moan of disappointment into Stella
Croyle's bedroom; and whilst she tidied it, more than once she stopped
to wring her hands.

Stella Croyle, however, kept her good spirits through the evening. For
after dinner Harry Luttrell, of his own will, came straight to her in
the drawing-room.

"Oh, Wub," she said in a whisper as she drew her skirt aside to make
room for him upon the couch. "Oh, Wub, what years it is since I have
seen you."

When the old nickname fell upon Harry's ears, he looked quickly about
him to see where Joan Whitworth sat. But she was at the other end of the
room.

"Yes, it is a long time."

"Stockholm!" said Stella, dwelling upon the name. She lowered her voice.
"Wub, I suffered terribly after you went away. Oh, it wasn't a good
time. No, it wasn't!"

"Stella, I am very sorry," he said gently. He knew himself this day the
glories and the pangs of love. He was sunk ocean-deep one moment in the
sense of his unworthiness, the next he knocked his head against the
stars on the