t be done immediately. He went
forward and held out his hand.

"How do you do, Miss Viner?"

She answered: "How do you do?" in a voice that sounded clear and
natural; and the next moment he again became aware of steps behind him,
and knew that Mrs. Leath was in the room.

To his strained senses there seemed to be another just measurable
pause before Anna said, looking gaily about the little group: "Has Owen
introduced you? This is Effie's friend, Miss Viner."

Effie, still hanging on her governess's arm, pressed herself closer with
a little gesture of appropriation; and Miss Viner laid her hand on her
pupil's hair.

Darrow felt that Anna's eyes had turned to him.

"I think Miss Viner and I have met already--several years ago in
London."

"I remember," said Sophy Viner, in the same clear voice.

"How charming! Then we're all friends. But luncheon must be ready," said
Mrs. Leath.

She turned back to the door, and the little procession moved down the
two long drawing-rooms, with Effie waltzing on ahead.

XV

Madame de Chantelle and Anna had planned, for the afternoon, a visit to
a remotely situated acquaintance whom the introduction of the motor had
transformed into a neighbour. Effie was to pay for her morning's holiday
by an hour or two in the school-room, and Owen suggested that he and
Darrow should betake themselves to a distant covert in the desultory
quest for pheasants.

Darrow was not an ardent sportsman, but any pretext for physical
activity would have been acceptable at the moment; and he was glad both
to get away from the house and not to be left to himself.

When he came downstairs the motor was at the door, and Anna stood before
the hall mirror, swathing her hat in veils. She turned at the sound of
his step and smiled at him for a long full moment.

"I'd no idea you knew Miss Viner," she said, as he helped her into her
long coat.

"It came back to me, luckily, that I'd seen her two or three times in
London, several years ago. She was secretary, or something of the sort,
in the background of a house where I used to dine."

He loathed the slighting indifference of the phrase, but he had uttered
it deliberately, had been secretly practising it all through the
interminable hour at the luncheon-table. Now that it was spoken, he
shivered at its note of condescension. In such cases one was almost sure
to overdo...But Anna seemed to notice nothing unusual.

"Was she really? You must tell