n home
life than any small fussing about the unimportant details. And she would
receive excuses from servants with a smile so sweet yet so incredulous
that it disarmed deceit and made incompetence hide its head (or give
notice).

She came round to the writing-table, bent her head over his shoulder,
and said in a low voice of emotion, as though it were a secret--

"How are you getting on? Did you want me to find anything--an address,
or anything?"

He put his hand on hers and looked up at her. Then he looked away.

"Don't, Sylvia. I wish you would go away. Or go to the other side of the
room ... I can't stand it."

"Oh, Frank! How rude and unkind!" But she was apparently not offended,
as she blushed and smiled while she moved a little away. Then she said,
looking at the cards--

"Will the party be awful, do you think?"

"No, it won't be bad. Except for me, of course. To see you talking to
other people. Not that I really care, because I know you have to. And
besides, you won't, will you?"

"I promise I won't! I'll just be a hostess, and talk to old ladies, or
stray girls, or perhaps just a few dull old married men."

"I approve of that programme. But--of course I have no right to advise,
and I may be entirely wrong--supposing you were to leave out the old
married men? You will have to talk to all the clever young men, I am
afraid. Don't go to supper with F. G. Rivers. That's all I ask. I
couldn't bear it."

"F. G. Rivers! Of course not! Felicity will do all that sort of thing.
She has a talent for celebrities--like papa. But why on earth _mustn't_
I go to supper with just F. G. Rivers?"

"Oh, I don't know. You can if you like. _I_ don't care," said Woodville
jealously.

"I thought he was a wonderfully clever novelist, tremendously successful
and celebrated!"

"Yes, I know. That's what I meant," Woodville said.

"Aren't his books rather weird and uncanny ... and romantic,--all about
local colour, and awfully cynical?"

"How well you know what to say about things! _Weird!_ Delightful! I dare
say that's what Rivers would expect a nice girl to say of his books. He
spends half his time being afraid people should think his work is lurid,
and the rest in being simply terrified that people should think it's
not. He's very clever really, and a delightful companion."

"Is he cynical?" she asked.

"He's so sceptical, that he believes in everything, but especially hard
work, like table-turning, crystal-gazing,