onlookers who had not been invited to
Buckingham Palace, had a patient and slightly wistful expression. She
had not spoken since the carriage had left the quiet hotel in which they
were staying for their fortnight in London.

Cicely sat on the back seat of the carriage. On such an occasion as this
she might have been expected to be accorded the feminine privilege of
sitting at the side of her mother, but it had not occurred to the Squire
to offer it to her. She was a pretty girl, twenty-two years of age, with
a fair skin and abundant brown hair. She was dressed in costly white
satin, her gown simply cut. As she had stood before her glass, while her
mother's maid had held for her her light evening cloak, her beautiful
neck and shoulders had seemed warmly flushed by contrast with the dead
pallor of the satin. She also had hardly spoken since they had driven
off from their hotel, which was so quiet and private that it was hardly
like an hotel, and where some of the servants had stood in the hall to
see them get into their carriage, just as they might have done at home
at Kencote.

It was a great occasion for Cicely. Her brothers--Dick, who was in the
Grenadier Guards, and Humphrey, who was in the Foreign Office--were well
enough used to the scenes of splendour offered by a London season, but
Cicely had hardly ever been in London at all. She had been brought up
four years before to be presented, and had been taken home again
immediately. She had seen nothing of London gaieties, either then or
since. Now she was to enjoy such opportunities of social intercourse as
might be open to the daughter of a rich squire who had had all he wanted
of town life thirty years before, and had lived in his country house
ever since. A fortnight was as long as the Squire cared to be away from
Kencote, even in the month of June; and a fortnight was to be the extent
of Cicely's London season. This was to be the crowning night of it.

The Squire chattered on affably. He had had a good dinner and had not
been hurried over it, or afterwards. That was the worst of those
theatres, he would say; they didn't give you time even to drink your
glass of wine; and he had not been affable with his wife and daughter
the evening before, when driving to the play. But now he was rather
pleased with himself. He did not care for all this sort of thing, of
course; he had had quite enough of it as a subaltern, dancing about
London all night, and going everywhere-