all but the two girls, the dinner may be counted a
distinct success.

Portia, who is dressed in filmy black, is looking white and nervous, and
has in her eyes an intense wrapt expression, such as one might have
whose nerves are all unstrung, and who is in momentary expectation of
something unpleasant, that may or may not happen. Dulce on the contrary
is flushed and angry. Her eyes are brilliant, and round her generally
soft lips lies a touch of determination foreign to them, and hardly
becoming.

Presently dinner comes to an end, and then the three women rise and
rustle away toward the drawing-room, where follows a dreary half hour,
indeed.

Julia, who is always drowsy after her claret, sinks complacently into
the embrace of the cosiest arm-chair she can find, and under pretence of
saving her priceless complexion (it really does cost a good deal) from
the fire, drops into a gentle slumber behind her fan.

This makes things even harder for Portia and Dulce. I need hardly say
they are not on speaking terms--that has explained itself, I hope.
Thrown now, therefore, upon their own resources, they look anxiously
around for a chance of mitigating the awkwardness of the situation that
has thrust itself upon them.

At such trying moments as these how blessed is the society of children.
Even crusty old bachelors, educated to the belief that the young and
innocent are only one gigantic fraud, have been known on occasions like
the present to bestow upon them a careful, not to say artful, attention.

To-night, Portia, Jacky and the Boodie are having it all their own way.
"Quite a bully time, don't you know," says Master Jacky, later, to the
all-suffering nurse, whose duty it is to look after them and put them to
bed. They are talked to and caressed and made much of by both girls, to
their excessive surprise; surprise that later on mounts to distrust.

"Why may I have this album to-night when I mightn't _last_ night?" asks
the Boodie, shrewdly, her big sapphire eyes bigger than usual. "You
scolded me about it last night, and every other time I touched it. And
what's the matter with your eyes?" staring up at Portia, who has turned
a page in the forbidden album, and is now gazing at a portrait of Fabian
that is smiling calmly up at her.

It is a portrait taken in that happy time when all the world was fair to
him, and when no "little rift" had come to make mute the music of his
life. Portia is gazing at it intently. She has