he no longer guided him with that impalpable
control; it was he who had become the pilot now, and he steered his own
way through the billowy ocean of silk and lace, master of the course he
had set, heavily bland to the interrupter and the importunate from whom
she turned a deaf ear and dumb lips, and lowered eyes that saw nothing.

Fleetwood had missed his dance with her, but she scarcely heard his
eager complaints. Quarrier, coldly inquiring, confronted them; was
passed almost without recognition, and left behind, motionless, looking
after them out of his narrowing, black-fringed eyes of a woman.

Then Ferrall came, and hearing his voice, she raised her colourless
face.

"Will you take me home with you, Kemp, when you take Grace?" she asked.

"Of course. I don't know where Grace is. Are you in a hurry to go? It's
only four o'clock."

They were at the entrance to the supper-room. Plank drew up a chair
for her, and she sank down, dropping her elbows on the small table, and
resting her face between her fingers.

"Pegged out, Sylvia?" exclaimed Ferrall incredulously. "You? What's the
younger set coming to?" and he motioned a servant to fill her glass. But
she pushed it aside with a shiver, and gave Plank a strange look which
he scarcely understood at the moment.

"More caprices; all sorts of 'em on the programme," muttered Ferrall,
looking down at her from where he stood beside Plank. "O tempora! O
Sylvia! ... Plank, would you mind hunting up my wife? I'll stay and see
that this infant doesn't fall asleep."

But Sylvia shook her head, saying: "Please go, Kemp. I'm a little
tired, that's all. When Grace is ready, I'll leave with her." And at
her gesture Plank seated himself, while Ferrall, shrugging his square
shoulders, sauntered off in quest of his wife, stopping a moment at
a neighbouring table to speak to Agatha Caithness, who sat there with
Captain Voucher, the gemmed collar on her slender throat a pale blaze of
splendour.

Plank was hungry, and he said so in his direct fashion. Sylvia nodded,
and exchanged a smile with Agatha, who turned at the sound of Plank's
voice. For a while, as he ate and drank largely, she made the effort to
keep up a desultory conversation, particularly when anybody to whom she
owed an explanation hove darkly in sight on the horizon. But Plank's
appetite was in proportion to the generous lines on which nature had
fashioned him, and she paid less and less attention to convention and a