of a party which she had in prospect, without apparently knowing
very much about it: "_a sort of house-warming. I'm not asking you to
meet any one in particular, because I don't know who'll be there. It'll
be a mob, I warn you. I'm inviting my friends, my husband's inviting
his; they'll probably quarrel, and there's sure not to be room for all.
Whatever you do, have a good dinner before you come. It doesn't sound
attractive, does it? But these things are often nothing like so bad as
one fears beforehand. I propose to enjoy MYself._"

Eric was amused by her candour and decided to look in for a few minutes.

Lady Maitland, complaining that "_Margaret Poynter always ACCAPARER-s my
nice young men_," invited him to shew his loyalty by coming to dine on
Friday. "_Babs Neave is coming_," she added.

As he had intended to spend Sunday evening in the country, he was
absolved from all work and could give undivided attention to the dinner
which his cook had improvised. (But he must get an ice-safe capable of
holding an adequate week-end supply. Dinner with only a choice of sherry
and of gin and bitters, with no opportunity for a cocktail suggested
"roughing it" to his mind.) He dined with a book propped against its
silver reading-stand leisurely and warm after his bath, comfortable in a
soft shirt and wadded smoking jacket.

After dinner he unlocked a branded cedar-wood cabinet, the first that he
had ever bought, and looked lovingly at the cigars, rich, dull-brown and
ineffably fragrant, bundle pressed shoulder to shoulder with bundle. A
new stock of wine had still to be entered in the cellar-book; and he had
to find places on his shelves for Hatchard's last consignment. It was
not yet easy to realize that, until the success of his play--six
thousand pounds sterling in eight calendar months--a new book had been
an event. . . .

For a happy hour he arranged and rearranged. At the end, surveying his
handiwork with undisguised pleasure, he thought of the bizarre night
when Babs Neave had forced her way in. He could still hardly believe
that it had occurred. And yet, without shutting his eyes, he could
almost see the child, deadly pale, tired, delighted and wholly
unexplained, bending forward with her wonderful white arms outstretched
to catch poor Agnes Waring's horse-shoe paper-weight, laughing one
moment, crying the next, kissing him the moment after. And how she
seemed to be in love with him. . . .

He took out a foot-rule