s, suddenly brought face
to face with the realisation that this love had been transferred to a
younger woman, and that woman her own daughter. The little scene enacted
so quietly in the pretty, conventional drawing-room, with its pale walls
and beflowered furniture, was of great tenseness.

Before anyone had spoken the door opened and the Newlyns and Pat
Yelverton came in, Mrs. Newlyn hastily clasping the last of the myriad
bracelets that were so peculiarly unbecoming to her thin red arms. She
and her husband both were bird-like in eye and gesture, and their
nicknames among their intimates were, though neither of them knew it,
the Cassowary and the Sparrow, she being the Cassowary. Besides being
bird-like, they were both bores of the deepest dye.

Pat Yelverton was a blond giant with a very bad reputation, a genius for
Bridge, and the softest, most caressing voice that ever issued from a
man's throat.

Meeting the new-comers at the door, Brigit shook hands with them and
returned, with an aimless air peculiar to her, to the fire.

She knew them all so well, and they all bored her to tears, except
Carron, whom she strongly hated. Everybody bored her, and everything.
With the utmost sincerity she wondered for the thousandth time why she
had ever been born.

As the others chattered, she went to a window and stood looking out
over the moonlit lawn.

"Lady Brigit!"

She turned, and seeing the smile of delight on the boyish face before
her, smiled back. "Monsieur Joyselle!"

Theo, who was twenty-two, and who adored her, flushed to the roots of
his curly hair--and who was it who decided that blushes stop there, and
do not continue up over the skull, down the back and out at one's heels?

"Yes, yes," he cried, holding her hand tightly in his. "Let us speak
French, I--I love to speak my own tongue to you."

He himself had a delightful little fault in his speech, being quite
incapable of pronouncing the English "r," rolling it in his throat in a
way that always amused Brigit.

As he talked, her smile deepened in character, and from one of mere
friendly greeting became one of real affection. He was nice, this boy;
she liked his honest dark eyes and the expression of his handsome young
mouth.

"Tell me," she began presently, "how is your father?"

"He is well, my father, but very nervous. Poor mother!"

"Poor _mother_?"

"But yes. The concert is to be to-morrow, and he is always in a furious
state of nerves befor