; "but there isn't time
to get another. Father will be here at any moment. It's late as it
is. Yes, I told Marchant to shut the windows, he said something about
Uncle Garrett's saying it was stuffy or something."

"Harry's late." Clare moved across to her father and bent down and
kissed him.

"How are you to-night, father?" but she was arranging the rose at her
breast and was obviously thinking more of its position than of the
answer to her question.

"Hungry--damned hungry," said Sir Jeremy.

"Oh, we'll have to wait," said Clare. "Harry's got to dress. Anyhow
you've got no right to be hungry at a quarter to seven. Nobody's ever
hungry till half-past seven at the earliest."

It was evident that she was ill at ease. Perhaps it was the prospect
of meeting her brother after a separation of eighteen years; perhaps it
was anxiety as to how this reclaimed son of the house of Trojan would
behave in the face of the world. It was so very important that the
house should not be in any way let down, that the dignity with which it
had invariably conducted its affairs for the last twenty years should
be, in no way, impaired. Harry had been anything but dignified in his
early days, and sheep-farming in New Zealand--well, of course, one knew
what kind of life that was.

But, as she looked across at Robin, it was easy to see that her anxiety
was, in some way, connected with him. How was this invasion to affect
her nephew? For eighteen years she had been the only father and mother
that he had known, for eighteen years she had educated him in all the
Trojan laws and traditions, the things that a Trojan must speak and do
and think, and he had faithfully responded to her instruction. He was
in every way everything that a Trojan should be; but there had been
moments, rare indeed and swiftly passing, when Clare had fancied that
there were other impulses, other ideas at work. She was afraid of
those impulses, and she was afraid of what Henry Trojan might do with
regard to them.

It was, indeed, hard, after reigning absolutely for eighteen years, to
yield her place to another, but perhaps, after all, Robin would be true
to his early training and she would not be altogether supplanted.

"Randal comes to-morrow," said Robin suddenly, after a few minutes'
silence. "Unfortunately he can only stop for a few days. His paper on
'Pater' has been taken by the _National_. He's very much pleased, of
course."

Robin spoke coldl