ht its ceaseless fight with Laziness; for the Evenwood
family had at various times and in various ways stimulated the
circulation of the evening papers. Most of them were living down
something, and it was Lady Kimbuck's habit, when thwarted in her
lightest whim, to retire to her boudoir and announce that she was not
to be disturbed as she was at last making a start on her book. Abject
surrender followed on the instant.

At this point in the discussion she folded up her crochet-work, and
rose.

"It is absolutely necessary for you, my dear, to make a good match, or
you will all be ruined. I, of course, can always support my declining
years with literary work, but----"

Lady Eva groaned. Against this last argument there was no appeal.

Lady Kimbuck patted her affectionately on the shoulder.

"There, run along now," she said. "I daresay you've got a headache or
something that made you say a lot of foolish things you didn't mean.
Go down to the drawing-room. I expect Mr. Bleke is waiting there to say
goodnight to you. I am sure he must be getting quite impatient."

Down in the drawing-room, Roland Bleke was hoping against hope that Lady
Eva's prolonged absence might be due to the fact that she had gone to
bed with a headache, and that he might escape the nightly interview
which he so dreaded.

Reviewing his career, as he sat there, Roland came to the conclusion
that women had the knack of affecting him with a form of temporary
insanity. They temporarily changed his whole nature. They made him feel
for a brief while that he was a dashing young man capable of the
highest flights of love. It was only later that the reaction came and he
realized that he was nothing of the sort.

At heart he was afraid of women, and in the entire list of the women of
whom he had been afraid, he could not find one who had terrified him so
much as Lady Eva Blyton.

Other women--notably Maraquita, now happily helping to direct the
destinies of Paranoya--had frightened him by their individuality. Lady
Eva frightened him both by her individuality and the atmosphere of
aristocratic exclusiveness which she conveyed. He had no idea whatever
of what was the proper procedure for a man engaged to the daughter of
an earl. Daughters of earls had been to him till now mere names in the
society columns of the morning paper. The very rules of the game were
beyond him. He felt like a confirmed Association footballer suddenly
called upon to play in an In