back, Aunt Jeannie,"
said Daisy.

"I know, dear, but in a house full of people what can one expect? We
must have a great talk when we get back to London. Every moment seems
occupied here. Dear child, I hope your headache will be better soon.
Will you not go and lie down? Or shall I tell Alice you are not well,
and won't you have a little dinner quietly in your room by yourself? No?
Let us go down, then."

CHAPTER XVIII.

The storm was violent for an hour or two, but before sunset it had
moved away again, and a half-hour of sunshine, washed, clean
sunshine, preceded sunset. But somehow the storm had not done its
proper work; it had scolded and roared and wept, but it had not quite
got the trouble out of the air. There was more to come.

The same sense that there was more to come invaded the spirits of Lady
Nottingham's guests. She herself was a little distraite, Daisy's
headache had left her rather white and tired, Gladys lamented the wreck
of the garden, and there was not much life about. Then after dinner it
clouded over again, the clouds regathered, lightning began to wink
remotely and thunder to grumble, and even Mrs. Halton, whom the sultry
heat had so invigorated, according to her own account, that afternoon,
was inclined to join in the rather early move to bed. Also, the next day
was Sunday, and Sunday was not particularly wanted. The fact of it was
felt to be a little depressing, and nobody quite knew what was the
matter with everybody else.

It is a fact that in every gathering of friends and acquaintances
there is some one person who makes _la pluie et le beau temps_, and
in this party it was emphatically Jeannie Halton who arranged the
weather. The spirits of every person are, to a certain extent,
infectious, but the spirits of some few people run through a house
like influenza, and there was no doubt that she had, all the evening,
been in a rather piano mood. She had not, of course, committed the
unpardonable social crime of showing that she was depressed, but she
had been a little retrospective, and tended to "remember how" in
general conversation, rather than to "hope that."

But it must not be supposed that she had behaved in any way outside
the lines of normal social intercourse. She had, for instance, just
gone out into the garden after dinner with Lord Lindfield, and had
quoted the line, "In the darkness thick and hot." It was apt enough
and harmless enough, but it had vaguely made him f