room.

It is a relief to everybody. Lady Monkton rises to receive them with a
smile: Miss L'Estrange looks into the teapot. Plainly she can still see
some tea leaves there. Rising, she inclines the little silver kettle
over them, and creates a second deluge. She has again made tea. May she
be forgiven!

"Going to give us some tea, Miss L'Estrange?" says Dicky, bearing down
upon her with a beaming face. She has given him some before this. "One
can always depend upon you for a good cup. Ah, thanks. Dysart, I can
recommend this. Have a cup; do."

"No, thank you," says Dysart, who has secured a seat next to Barbara,
and is regarding her anxiously, while replying to her questions of
surprise at seeing him in town at this time of year. She is surprised
too, and a little shocked to see him look so ill.

Dicky is still holding a brilliant conversation with Miss L'Estrange,
who, to him, is a joy for ever.

"Didn't expect to see me here again so soon, eh?" says he, with a
cheerful smile.

"There you are wrong," returns that spinster, in the hoarse croak that
distinguishes her. "The fact that you were here yesterday and couldn't
reasonably be supposed to come again for a week, made it at once a
certainty that you would turn up immediately. The unexpected is what
always happens where you are concerned."

"One of my many charms," says Mr. Browne gayly, hiding his untasted cup
by a skillful movement behind the sugar bowl. "Variety, you know, is
ever charming. I'm a various person, therefore I'm charming."

"Are you?" says Miss L'Estrange, grimly.

"Can you look at me and doubt it?" demands Mr. Browne, deep reproach in
his eyes.

"I can," returns Miss L'Estrange, presenting an uncompromising front. "I
can also suggest to you that those lumps of sugar are meant to put in
the cups with the tea, not to be consumed wholesale. Sugar, plain, is
ruinous to the stomach and disastrous to the teeth."

"True, true," says Mr. Browne, absently, "and both mine are so pretty."

Miss L'Estrange rises to her feet and confronts him with a stony glare.

"Both what?" demands she.

"Eh? Why, both of them," persists Mr. Browne.

"I think, Richard, that the sooner you return to your hotel, or whatever
low haunt you have chosen as your present abode, the better it will be
for all present."

"Why so?" demands Mr. Browne, indignantly. "What have I done now?"

"You know very well, sir," says Miss L'estrange. "Your language is
disgraceful.