a flower, and very much amused too; and
between them were the people, young mostly, and gay, who were staying
with them. Lucy, who had been brought up in a secluded Bohemianism, found
it very funny and nice having a house-party, and so many servants to see
after them all that one needn't bother to run round and make sure
everyone had soap, and so on.

One person, not young, who was staying there, was Lord Evelyn Urquhart.
Lucy loved him. He loved her, and told funny stories. Sometimes, between
the stories, she would catch his near-sighted, screwed up eyes scanning
her face with a queer expression that might have been wistfulness; he
seemed at times to be looking for something in her face, and finding it.
Particularly when she laughed, in her chuckling, gurgling way, he looked
like this, and would grow grave suddenly. They had talked together about
all manner of things, being excellent friends, but only once so far about
Lucy's cousin Peter. Once had been too much, Lucy had found. The
Margerisons were a tabooed subject with Lord Evelyn Urquhart.

Denis shrugged his shoulders over it. "They did him brown, you see," he
explained, in his light, casual way. "Uncle Evelyn can't forgive that.
And it's because he was so awfully fond of Peter that he's so bitter
against him now. I never mention him; it's best not.... You know, you
keep giving the poor dear shocks by looking like Peter, and laughing like
him, and using his words. You _are_ rather like, you know."

"I know," said Lucy. "It's not only looking and laughing and words; we
think alike too. So perhaps if he gets fond of me he'll forgive Peter
sometime."

"He's an implacable old beggar," Denis said. "It's stupid of him. It
never seems to me worth while to get huffy; it's so uncomfortable. He
expects too much of people, and when they disappoint him he--"

"Takes umbradge," Lucy filled in for him. That was another of Peter's
expressions; they shared together a number of such stilted, high-sounding
phrases, mostly culled either out of Adelphi melodrama or the fiction of
a by-gone age.

To-night, when the cloth had been removed that they might eat fruit,
Denis was informed that there was a gentleman waiting to see him. The
gentleman had not vouchsafed either his name or business, so he could
obviously wait a little longer, till Denis had finished his own business.
In twenty minutes Denis went to the library, and there found Hilary
Margerison, sitting by the fire in a g