the complex family energy, there reappeared the
suggestion of a mysterious domestic charm.

'Don't be late to-night,' said Stanway severely to Millicent.

'Now, grumbler,' retorted the intrepid child, putting her gloved hand
suddenly over her father's mouth; Stanway submitted. The picture of the
two in this delicious momentary contact remained long in Twemlow's mind;
and he thought that Stanway could not be such a brute after all.

'Play something for us, Nora,' said the august paterfamilias, spreading
at ease in his chair in the drawing-room, when the girls were gone.
Leonora removed her bangles and began to play 'The Bees' Wedding.' But
she had not proceeded far before Milly ran in again.

'A note from Mr. Dain, pa.'

Milly had vanished in an instant, and Leonora continued to play as if
nothing had happened, but Arthur was conscious of a change in the
atmosphere as Stanway opened the letter and read it.

'I must just go over the way and speak to a neighbour,' said Stanway
carelessly when Leonora had struck the final chord. 'You'll excuse me,
I know. Sha'n't be long.'

'Don't mention it,' Arthur replied with politeness, and then, after
Stanway had gone, leaving the door open, he turned to Leonora at the
piano, and said: 'Do play something else.'

Instead of answering, she rose, resumed her jewellery, and took the
chair which Stanway had left. She smiled invitingly, evasively,
inscrutably at her guest.

'Tell me about American women,' she said: 'I've always wanted to know.'

He thought her attitude in the great chair the most enchanting thing he
had ever seen.

* * * * *

Leonora had watched Twemlow's demeanour from the moment when she met him
in her husband's office. She had guessed, but not certainly, that it was
still inimical at least to John, and the exact words of Uncle Meshach's
warning had recurred to her time after time as she met his reluctant,
cautious eyes. Nevertheless, it was by the sudden uprush of an instinct,
rather than by a calculated design, that she, in her home and surrounded
by her daughters, began the process of enmeshing him in the web of
influences which she spun ceaselessly from the bright threads of her own
individuality. Her mind had food for sombre preoccupation--the lost
battle with Milly during the day about Milly's comic-opera housekeeping;
the tale told by John's nervous, effusive, guilty manner; and especially
the episode of the letter from