have our ultimatum
afterwards, Lord Lindfield. Daisy may make harder conditions than I,
and if she does, I shall certainly adopt them. Now, do look bored
pretty soon, and come out of the dining-room quickly. It is
barbarous this separation of the sexes after dinner. You don't stop
behind after breakfast to drink tea."

The others had passed out, and Daisy and Mrs. Halton brought up a rather
detached rearguard. The rest had gone straight out of the house into the
verandah, where they had had tea, for the night was exquisitely soft
and warm, and they followed them there.

"Ah! such a concert, Daisy," said Jeannie. "I wish you could have
been there. And such a ludicrous drive as we had. It is so pleasant
meeting Tom Lindfield again; we were great friends a year or two
ago, and I think we are great friends still. But, my dear, our
drive! We went for the first hour well inside the four-miles-an-hour
limit, and eventually stuck on a perfectly flat road. Then the
chauffeur chauffed for an hour or two, and after that we came along
a shade above the fifty-miles-an-hour limit. Our limitations were
our limits throughout. And such nonsense as we talked!"

"Oh, do tell me," said Daisy. "Nonsense is the only thing I care to
hear about."

"I couldn't. I can't remember anything. I only know I laughed quite
enormously and causelessly. Ah, here they all are.--Alice, what a divine
place, and how it has grown up? Like Daisy. I was telling her about my
ridiculous drive with Lord Lindfield."

Jeannie sat down in a big basket-chair and became suddenly silent. She
felt queerly tired; she felt also rather sick at heart, and looking at
Daisy, she could not bear the thought of the trouble and disquietude she
must bring to the girl whom she so loved. She had saddled herself with a
load that already galled her, though she had barely taken it up, and
even as she spoke of her ludicrous drive there came to her mind an
aspect of it, namely, the purpose for which she had driven down with
him, which was not ludicrous at all.

And here, in this starlit garden, with friends on all sides of her,
it seemed an incredible thing that she had got to sow suspicion and
discord. Trouble and sorrow seemed so remote, so utterly alien.
Security and serenity had here their proper home; it was a place of
pleasantness and friends and rest. She felt much inclined to yield
to its influences, to put off the execution of her scheme, saying
to herself that it was wis