take no notice
at all, and dismiss her from his mind.

Clearly that was the right thing to do, but instead of doing the right
thing he first felt angry, and then sick at heart. Women--those
witches--were really rather cruel. They cast a spell over one, and
then rode away on their broomsticks, disregarding the poor wretch over
whom they had cast it. He was left to go mooning about, until in the
merciful course of Nature the spell began to lose its potency and die
out. Then, again, he would remember the dignity of man, and repeat to
himself his determination to dismiss her and her incomprehensibilities
from his mind, and challenge Daisy to some silly game. She, poor
wretch, would accept with avidity; but the game, whatever it was, soon
seemed to lose its edge and its gaiety. There was something that had
clearly gone wrong.

Daisy guessed what that was, and her guess was fairly correct. It seemed
to her that for a couple of days Aunt Jeannie had, to put it quite
bluntly, run after Lord Lindfield. She had pretty well caught him up,
too, for Daisy was fair-minded enough to see that he had not been very
agile in getting away from her. He had been quite glad to be caught up,
and was evidently charmed by her.

Then, clearly, about the time of her own headache, something had
happened; Daisy could see that. Aunt Jeannie, though positively melting
with geniality and charming warmth to everybody else, turned on him a
shoulder that was absolutely frozen. Why she had done this Daisy could
not help guessing, and her solution was that Jeannie had been
tremendously attracted by him, and then suddenly seen that somehow it
"wouldn't do." Perhaps at this point the sight that Daisy had caught of
her aunt and Victor Braithwaite together in the garden supplied a gap in
the explanation. Daisy did not like to think that that was it; for, in
truth, if it was, there was no doubt whatever that darling Aunt Jeannie
had been flirting. But, as Aunt Jeannie had quite ceased to flirt, Daisy
was more than willing to forgive her for the miseries of those two
dreadful days; she was even willing to forget.

Only Lord Lindfield, it was clear to her, did not quite forget. He was
altogether unlike himself. For a little while he would be uproariously
cheerful, then his gaiety would go out without a gutter, like a
candle suddenly taken out into a gale of wind. And then, perhaps, his
eyes would stray about till, for a moment, they fastened on Jeannie,
who w