you do too much. He wears himself out,
Lawrence--oh! my scarf!" She was wearing a silver scarf over her
black dress, and as she moved it fluttered up and caught on the
chain round her throat. "Unfasten me, please, Val," she said,
bending her fair neck, and Val was obliged laboriously to
disentangle the silken cobweb from the spurs of her clear-set
diamonds, a process which fascinated Lawrence, whose mind was
more French than English in its permanent interest in women.
Certainly Val's office of friend of the family was not less
delicate because Laura, secure in her few years seniority,
treated him like a younger brother! Watching, not Val, but Val's
reflection in a mirror, Lawrence overlooked no shade of
constraint, no effort that Val made to avoid touching with his
finger-tips the satin allure of Laura's exquisite skin. "Poor
miserable Val!" Suspicion was crystallizing into certainty. "Or
is it poor Bernard? No, I swear she doesn't know. Does he know
himself?"

A servant had brought in coffee, and Lawrence in his quality of
cousin poured out two cups and carried them over to Laura and to
Val. "Well, I'm damned!" murmured Lawrence as Val refastened the
clasp of the chain. "Picturesque, all this.-- Here, Val, here's
your coffee."

"But do you know each other so well as that?" exclaimed Laura,
arching her wren's-feather eyebrows.

"I was an infant subaltern when Hyde knew me," said Val laughing,
"and he was a howling swell of a captain. Do you remember that
night you all dined with us, sir, when we were in billets? We
stood you champagne--"

"Purchased locally. I remember the champagne."

"Dine with us tomorrow night," said Laura. "Do! and bring
Isabel." Lawrence gave an imperceptible start: for the last hour
he had forgotten Isabel's existence except when her eyes had
looked at him out of her brother's face. "The child will enjoy
it, I never knew any one so easily pleased; and you and Lawrence
and Bernard can rag one another to your heart's content. Yes,
you will, I know you will, Army men always do when they get
together; and you're all boys, even Bernard, even you with your
grey hair, my dear Val; as for Lawrence, he's only giving himself
airs."

"Yes, do bring your sister," said Lawrence. "She is the most
charming young girl I've met for years, if a man of my mature age
may say so. She is so natural, a rare thing nowadays: the modern
jeune fille is a sophisticated product."

"Bravo, Lawren