lour
flushed her cheeks under excitement. Her hair was always untidy, her
hairpins displaying abnormal activity in respect of escape and
independent action. Her eyes were round and very prominent, suggestive
of highly-polished, brown agates. She was not the least shy or averse
to attracting attention. She laughed much, and practised, as prelude to
her laughter, an impudently, coquettish, little stare. And finally, as
he sat on her right at dinner, her rattling talk and lightness of
calibre generally struck John Knott as rather cynically inadequate to
the demands made by her present position. Not that he underrated her
good nature or was insensible to her personal attractions. But the
doctor was in search of an able coadjutor just then, blessed with a
steady brain and a tongue skilled in tender diplomacies. For there were
trying things to be said and done, and he needed a woman of a fine
spirit to do and say them aright.

"Head like an eft," he said to himself, as course followed course, and,
while bandying compliments with her, he watched and listened. "As soon
set a harlequin to lead a forlorn hope. Well it's to be trusted her
husband's some use for her--that's more than I have anyhow, so the
sooner we see her off the premises the better. Suppose I shall have to
fall back on Ormiston. Bit of a rake, I expect, though in looks he is
so curiously like that beautiful, innocent, young thing upstairs.
Wonder how he'll take it? No mistake, it's a facer!"

Dr. Knott settled himself back squarely in his chair and pushed his
cheese-plate away from him, while his shaggy eyebrows drew together as
he fixed his eyes on the young man at the head of the table.

"A facer!" he repeated to himself. "Yes, the ancients knew what they
were about in these awkward matters. The modern conscience is
disastrously anaemic."

Although it looks on to the terrace, the dining-room at Brockhurst is
among the least cheerful of the living rooms. The tapestry with which
it is hung--representing French hunting scenes, each panel set in a
broad border pattern of birds, fruits and leaves, interspersed with
classic urns and medallions--is worked in neutral tints of brown, blue,
and gray. The chimneypiece, reaching the whole height of the wall, is
of liver-coloured marble. At the period in question, it was still the
fashion to dine at the modestly early hour of six; and, the spring
evenings being long, the curtains had been left undrawn, so that the
dyin