familiar voice speaking. Her maid,
who stood in the background, watched and wondered.

"It is you, Baroness! I rang up to see whether there was any chance of
your being able to dine with me? I have just got back to town."

"How dared you go away without telling me!" she exclaimed. "And how can I
dine with you? Do you not realise that it is Ascot Thursday, and I have
had many invitations to dine to-night? I am going to a very big
dinner-party at Thurm House."

"Bad luck!" Norgate replied disconsolately. "And to-morrow?"

"I have not finished about to-night yet," Anna continued. "I suppose you
do not, by any chance, want me to dine with you very much?"

"Of course I do," was the prompt answer. "You see plenty of the Princess
of Thurm and nothing of me, and there is always the chance that you may
have to go abroad. I think that it is your duty--"

"As a matter of duty," Anna interrupted, "I ought to dine at Thurm House.
As a matter of pleasure, I shall dine with you. You will very likely not
enjoy yourself. I am going to be very cross indeed. You have neglected
me shamefully. It is only these wonderful roses which have saved you."

"So long as I am saved," he murmured, "tell me, please, where you would
like to dine?"

"Any place on earth," she replied. "You may call for me here at half-past
eight. I shall wear a hat and I would like to go somewhere where our
people do not go."

Anna set down the telephone. The listlessness had gone from her manner.
She glanced at the clock and ran lightly into the other room.

"Put all that splendour away," she ordered her maid cheerfully. "To-night
we shall dazzle no one. Something perfectly quiet and a hat, please. I
dine in a restaurant. And ring the bell, Marie, for two aperitifs--not
that I need one. I am hungry, Marie. I am looking forward to my dinner
already. I think something dead black. I am looking well tonight. I can
afford to wear black."

Marie beamed.

"Madame has recovered her spirits," she remarked demurely.

Anna was suddenly silent. Her light-heartedness was a revelation. She
turned to her maid.

"Marie," she directed, "you will telephone to Thurm House. You will ask
for Lucille, the Princess's maid. You will give my love to the Princess.
You will say that a sudden headache has prostrated me. It will be enough.
You need say no more. To-morrow I lunch with the Princess, and she will
understand."

CHAPTER XXV

"Confess," Anna exclaimed, as she l