DYS 241

XXX "THE ANGLES" 248

XXXI AT EDGWARE 256

XXXII TENSION 263

XXXIII GOOD-BYE 268

XXXIV ROMER OVERHEARS 274

XXXV THE LIMIT 286

XXXVI RECONCILIATION 291

CHAPTER I

VALENTIA

"Romer, are you listening?"

"Valentia, do I ever do anything else?"

"I've almost decided and absolutely made up my mind that it will look
ever so much better if you don't go with me to Harry's dinner after
all."

"Really?"

"Yes. We two--you _and_ I--always seem to make such an enormous family
party! Of course, I know we have to go about in these huge batches
sometimes--to your mother, and that sort of thing, but in this case it
will look better not."

Valentia made this rather ungracious suggestion, looking so pretty, so
serious, and yet with such a conciliating smile that it would have been
almost impossible for even the most touchy person to have been offended.

The tall, significant-looking husband stopped in his stroll across the
room.

It was a charming room, with pale grey walls and a pale green carpet,
and very little in it except, let in as a panel, a delicate low-toned
portrait of the mistress of the house, vaguely appearing through
vaporous curtains, holding pale flowers, and painted with a rather
mysterious effect by that talented young amateur, her cousin, Harry de
Freyne. It had been his sole success in art, and had been exhibited at
the Grafton Galleries under the name of The Gilded Lily. No one had ever
known or was ever likely to know whether the title referred to the
decorative, if botanically impossible, blossom in her hand, or to the
golden hair of the seductive sitter.

Romer Wyburn paused a moment--he always paused before speaking--and then
said very slowly--

"Oh! Really? You think it will look better if I don't go with you?"

He invariably spoke with the greatest deliberation, and with no
expression whatever.

"Oh yes, dear, I'm sure it would," she repeated coaxingly.

"Do you mean if you go without me?"

"What else can I mean?"

"It'll look better, you think; eh? Is that the idea?"

He sat down opposite the portrait, lighted a cigarette, and thought.
Then he said with ruminating interest--

"I don't see why. Why will it look so much better for me not to go with
you?"

"Oh, Romer dear, really! It's one of those things that are almost