out of her experience as the domestic problems of the
char-woman. Mrs. Trenor's unconsciousness of the real stress of the
situation had the effect of making it more galling to Lily. While her
friend reproached her for missing the opportunity to eclipse her rivals,
she was once more battling in imagination with the mounting tide of
indebtedness from which she had so nearly escaped. What wind of folly had
driven her out again on those dark seas?

If anything was needed to put the last touch to her self-abasement it was
the sense of the way her old life was opening its ruts again to receive
her. Yesterday her fancy had fluttered free pinions above a choice of
occupations; now she had to drop to the level of the familiar routine, in
which moments of seeming brilliancy and freedom alternated with long
hours of subjection.

She laid a deprecating hand on her friend's. "Dear Judy! I'm sorry to
have been such a bore, and you are very good to me. But you must have
some letters for me to answer--let me at least be useful."

She settled herself at the desk, and Mrs. Trenor accepted her resumption
of the morning's task with a sigh which implied that, after all, she had
proved herself unfit for higher uses.

The luncheon table showed a depleted circle. All the men but Jack Stepney
and Dorset had returned to town (it seemed to Lily a last touch of irony
that Selden and Percy Gryce should have gone in the same train), and Lady
Cressida and the attendant Wetheralls had been despatched by motor to
lunch at a distant country-house. At such moments of diminished interest
it was usual for Mrs. Dorset to keep her room till the afternoon; but on
this occasion she drifted in when luncheon was half over, hollowed-eyed
and drooping, but with an edge of malice under her indifference.

She raised her eyebrows as she looked about the table. "How few of us are
left! I do so enjoy the quiet--don't you, Lily? I wish the men would
always stop away--it's really much nicer without them. Oh, you don't
count, George: one doesn't have to talk to one's husband. But I thought
Mr. Gryce was to stay for the rest of the week?" she added enquiringly.
"Didn't he intend to, Judy? He's such a nice boy--I wonder what drove
him away? He is rather shy, and I'm afraid we may have shocked him: he
has been brought up in such an old-fashioned way. Do you know, Lily, he
told me he had never seen a girl play cards for money till he saw you
doing it the other night?