nd themselves in the same predicament. He looked
at his watch, and remarked that the gardens would soon be closed.

"Anyhow," he added, "I think we've seen enough for one afternoon. Where
have the others got to?" He looked over his shoulder, and, seeing no
trace of them, remarked at once:

"We'd better be independent of them. The best plan will be for you to
come back to tea with me."

"Why shouldn't you come with me?" she asked.

"Because we're next door to Highgate here," he replied promptly.

She assented, having very little notion whether Highgate was next door
to Regent's Park or not. She was only glad to put off her return to
the family tea-table in Chelsea for an hour or two. They proceeded with
dogged determination through the winding roads of Regent's Park, and
the Sunday-stricken streets of the neighborhood, in the direction of the
Tube station. Ignorant of the way, she resigned herself entirely to him,
and found his silence a convenient cover beneath which to continue her
anger with Rodney.

When they stepped out of the train into the still grayer gloom of
Highgate, she wondered, for the first time, where he was taking her.
Had he a family, or did he live alone in rooms? On the whole she was
inclined to believe that he was the only son of an aged, and possibly
invalid, mother. She sketched lightly, upon the blank vista down which
they walked, the little white house and the tremulous old lady rising
from behind her tea-table to greet her with faltering words about "my
son's friends," and was on the point of asking Ralph to tell her what
she might expect, when he jerked open one of the infinite number of
identical wooden doors, and led her up a tiled path to a porch in the
Alpine style of architecture. As they listened to the shaking of the
bell in the basement, she could summon no vision to replace the one so
rudely destroyed.

"I must warn you to expect a family party," said Ralph. "They're mostly
in on Sundays. We can go to my room afterwards."

"Have you many brothers and sisters?" she asked, without concealing her
dismay.

"Six or seven," he replied grimly, as the door opened.

While Ralph took off his coat, she had time to notice the ferns and
photographs and draperies, and to hear a hum, or rather a babble, of
voices talking each other down, from the sound of them. The rigidity
of extreme shyness came over her. She kept as far behind Denham as she
could, and walked stiffly after him into a ro