n to
suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would not
have betrayed him to this man--if to anybody.

"I'm sure I can't say."

"Well--it's funny, anyhow. Guess we better not say anything about it.
After all, it's no concern of ours."

She couldn't refrain from the question: "But why should you think
he--?"

"Well, what _was_ he doing all that time--?"

He checked and stammered with embarrassment. "I beg your pardon!"

"You needn't. He wasn't--with me--all that time."

The situation grown intolerable, Sally got up suddenly and without a
word of excuse took her scarlet cheeks out of the dining-room and back
to her bedchamber.

On the dot of their standing appointment she found Mrs. Gosnold
unconsciously, perhaps, but none the less strikingly posed in the
golden glow of her boudoir window for the portrait of a lady of
quality on fatigue duty--very much at her ease in a lavender-silk
morning gown and stretched out in a _chaise longue_, a tray with
fruit, coffee and rolls on her left dividing attention with a sheaf of
morning notes on the other side and the portable writing-case on her
knees.

Acknowledging Sally's appearance with a pleasant if slightly
abstracted smile, she murmured: "Oh, is it you, Miss Manwaring? Sit
down, please. Half a minute . . ."

On the _qui vive_ for any indication that Mrs. Standish had been false
to her word or Mrs. Gosnold informed through any other channel of the
secret history of that night and consequently inclined to hold her
secretary in distrust, Sally detected nothing in the other's manner to
add to her uneasiness. To the contrary, in fact. She sat and watched
in admiration, and thought that she had never known a woman better
poised, more serenely mistress of herself and of the technique of
life. If Mrs. Gosnold nursed a secret sorrow, anxiety, or grievance,
the world would never learn of it through any flaw in the armour of
her self-possession.

She wrought busily with a fountain pen for little longer than the
stipulated period of delay, then addressed and sealed a note and
looked up again with her amiable, shrewd smile.

"Good morning!" she laughed, quite as if she had not till then
recognised Sally's presence. "You've slept well, I trust?"

Sally did not hesitate perceptibly; the honest impulse prevailed.
Secretly she was determined to tell no more major lies, though the
heavens fell--only such minor fibs as are necessary to lubricate the
machiner