always mounting staircases, going up in lifts, and
driving about leaving cards, and was extremely hospitable and
superlatively social. Bertha always wondered at her gregariousness,
since one would fancy she could have got very little satisfaction in
continual intercourse with a crowd of people whom she forgot the instant
they were out of her sight. Lady Kellynch really knew people chiefly by
their telephone numbers and their days, when they had any. She would
say: "Mrs. So-and-so? Oh yes, six-three-seven-five Gerrard, at home on
Sundays," but could rarely recollect anything else about her. She was at
once vague and precise, quite amiable, very sentimental and utterly
heartless; except to her sons.

"No, Percy won't be home till dinner-time. To-day he's playing squash
rackets."

"That's so like his father," said Lady Kellynch admiringly. "He was
always so fond of sports, and devoted to music. When I say sports, to be
_strictly_ accurate I don't mean that he ever cared for rude, rough
games like football or anything cruel like hunting or shooting, but he
loved to look on at a game of cricket, and I've often been to Lord's
with him." She sighed. "Dominoes! he was wild about dominoes! I assure
you (dear Percy would remember), every evening after dinner he must have
his game of dominoes, and sometimes even after lunch."

"Dominoes, as you say, isn't exactly a field sport," sympathetically
agreed Bertha.

"Quite so, dear. But, however, that was his favourite game. Then, did I
say just now he was fond of music? He didn't care for the kind that
Percy likes, but he would rarely send a piano-organ away, and he even
encouraged the German bands. How fond he was of books too--and reading,
and that sort of thing! Percy gets his fondness for books from his
father. Clifford too is fond of books."

"He is indeed," said Bertha; "he's devoted to books. Last time I went to
see him, when he was at home for the holidays, I found among his books a
nice copy of 'The New Arabian Nights.' We hadn't one in the house at the
time, and I asked him to lend it to me."

"Did you indeed?"

Lady Kellynch looked a shade surprised, as if it had been rather a
liberty.

"Well," said Bertha, laughing, and turning to Madeline, "what do you
think he said? 'Bertha, I'm awfully sorry, but I make it a rule never to
lend books. I don't approve of it--half the time they don't come back,
and in fact--oh, I don't think it's a good plan. I never do it.' I too