m her bag and opened it. "My duties are
so arduous that I have been compelled to make lists and things."

"Vane," he answered, "Christian--Derek."

She entered both in her book, and then shut it with a snap. "Now I'm
ready to begin. Are you going to amuse me, or am I going to amuse you?"

"You have succeeded in doing the latter most thoroughly," Vane assured
her.

"No--have I really? I must be in good form to-day. One really never can
tell, you know. An opening that is a scream with some people falls as
flat as ditch-water with others." She looked at him pensively for a
moment or two, tapping her small white teeth with a gold pencil.

Suddenly Vane leaned forward. "May I ask your age, Joan?"

Her eyebrows went up slightly. "Joan!" she said.

"I dislike addressing the unknown," remarked Vane, "and I heard Lady
Patterdale call you Joan. But if you prefer it--may I ask your age, Miss
Snooks?"

She laughed merrily. "I think I prefer Joan, thank you; though I don't
generally allow that until the fourth or fifth performance. You see, if
one gets on too quickly it's so difficult to fill in the time at the end
if the convalescence is a long one."

"I am honoured," remarked Vane. "But you haven't answered my question."

"I really see no reason why I should. It doesn't come into the rules--at
least not my rules. . . . Besides I was always told that it was rude to
ask personal questions."

"I am delighted to think that something you were taught at your mother's
knee has produced a lasting effect on your mind," returned Vane.
"However, at this stage we won't press it. . . . I should hate to
embarrass you." He looked at her in silence for a while, as if he was
trying to answer to his own satisfaction some unspoken question on his
mind.

"I think," she said, "that I had better resume my official duties. What
do you think of Rumfold Hall?"

"It would be hard in the time at my disposal, my dear young lady, to give
a satisfactory answer to that question." Vane lit a cigarette. "I will
merely point out to you that it contains a banqueting chamber in which
Bloody Mary is reported to have consumed a capon and ordered two more
Protestants to be burned--and that the said banqueting hall has been used
of recent years by the vulgar for such exercises as the fox trot and the
one step. Further, let me draw your attention to the old Elizabethan
dormer window from which it is reported that the celebrated Sir Wal