evenings in his home, and the love of
them grew steadily upon him. To the occasional protests of his friends
he laughingly replied:

"The fact is we're both very happy at home. We're an unfashionable
couple."

Bruce Evelin, Esme Darlington and a few others, including, of course,
Dion's mother and the Daventrys, they sometimes asked to come to them.
Their little dinners were homely and delightful; but Mr. Darlington
often regretted plaintively their "really, if I may say so, almost too
definite domesticity." He even said to certain intimates:

"I know the next thing we shall hear of will be that the Leiths have
decided to bury themselves in the country. And Dion Leith will wreck his
nerves by daily journeys to town in some horrid business train."

At the beginning of January, however, there came an invitation which
they decided to accept. It was to an evening party at Mrs. Chetwinde's,
and she begged Rosamund to be nice to her and sing at it.

"Since you've given up singing professionally one never hears you at
all," she wrote. "I'm not going to tell the usual lie and say I'm only
having a few people. On the contrary, I'm asking as many as my house
will hold. It's on January the fifteenth."

It happened that the invitation arrived in Little Market Street by the
last post, and that, earlier in the day, Daventry had met Dion in the
Club and had casually told him that Mrs. Clarke was spending the whole
of January in Paris, to get some things for the flat in Constantinople
which she intended to occupy in the late spring. Rosamund showed Dion
Mrs. Chetwinde's note.

"Let's go," he said at once.

"Shall we? Do you like these crowds? She says 'as many as my house will
hold.'"

"All the better. There'll be all the more to enjoy the result of your
practising. Do say yes."

His manner was urgent. Mrs. Clarke would be in Paris. This party was
certainly no ingenuity of Daventry's.

"We mustn't begin to live like a monk and a nun," he exclaimed. "We're
too young and enjoy life too much for that."

"Do monks and nuns live together? Since when?" said Rosamund, laughing
at him.

"Poor wretches! If only they did, how much--!"

"Hush!" she said, with a smiling pretense of thinking of being shocked
presently.

She went to the writing-table.

"Very well, then, we'll go if you want to."

"Don't you?" he asked, following her.

She had sat down and taken up a pen. Now she looked up at him with her
steady eyes.

"I'm