s for a moment Daisy and Aunt Alice were alone at the
tea-table.

Daisy dropped into a chair at Lady Nottingham's side.

"I am so glad he likes Aunt Jeannie," she said in her best and quickest
style, "and that she likes him. I suppose they do like each other, since
they go to a concert together and miss a train together. You never miss
trains with people you don't like, do you, Aunt Alice? I was rather
afraid, do you know, that Aunt Jeannie wouldn't like him. I am so glad I
was wrong. And they knew each other before, did they?"

Lady Nottingham paused a moment. She never devoted, as has been said,
more of her brain than was necessary to deal with the subject in hand,
but it appeared to her that a good deal of brain was required here.
Daisy, poor undiplomatic Daisy, had tried so hard in this rapid,
quick-witted little speech to say all the things she knew she ought to
feel, and which, as a matter of fact, she did not feel. Superficially,
it was no doubt delightful that Aunt Jeannie should like Tom Lindfield;
it was delightful also that he should like her. The speech was all quite
correct, quite sincere as far as it went, but if one took it further it
was all quite insincere. She said all that the surface felt in order to
conceal what she really felt.

And the light reply again was not easy to Lady Nottingham. She had
considered Jeannie's plan in all its bearings, and neither then nor now
could she think of a better plan. But already Daisy was watching; she
said it was so nice that the two should be friends. She meant it, as far
as it went, but no further. She would have to learn to mean it less and
less; she would have to dislike and then to hate the idea of their being
friends, if Jeannie's plan was to succeed. She would also have to hate
one, anyhow, if not both, of the two whom she liked so much. The curtain
had gone up on a tragic little farce. It was in order to avoid a
tragedy, however, that the farce had been planned. It was in order to
save Daisy that she was being sacrificed now.

Lady Nottingham took up Daisy's last question.

"Oh, yes, they have known each other for years," she said, helping
the plan forward. "They met quite like old friends. I was completely
out of it last night. We were just us three in the box, and I was
the 'shadowy third.'"

Daisy stamped, figuratively speaking, on what was in her mind, and
compelled her loyalty to triumph.

"I don't wonder at everybody simply loving Aunt Jeannie