's _Valse Tendre_ and playing it to perfection.

Jones turned to the man-servant.

"Who is that?" he asked.

"It is her ladyship, my Lord, she arrived half an hour ago. Her luggage
has gone upstairs."

Her ladyship!

Jones thrown off his balance hesitated for a moment, _what_ ladyship
could it be. Not, surely, that awful mother!

He crossed to the door, opened it, found a music-room, and there, seated
at a piano, the girl of the Victoria.

She was in out-door dress and had not removed her hat.

She looked over her shoulder at him as he came in, her face wore a half
smile, but she did not stop playing. Anything more fascinating, more
lovely, more distracting than that picture it would be hard to imagine.

As he crossed the room she suddenly ceased playing and twirled round on
the music-stool.

"I've come back," said she. "Ju-ju, I couldn't stand it. You are bad but
you are a lot, lot better than your mother--and Venetia. I'm going to
try and put up with you a bit longer--_Ju-Ju_, what makes you look so
stiff and funny?"

"I don't know," said Jones, passing his hand across his forehead. "I've
had a hard day." She looked at him curiously for a moment, then
pityingly, then kindly.

Then she jumped up, made him sit down on a big couch by the wall, and
took her seat beside him.

Then she took his hand.

"Ju-Ju--why will you be such a fool?"

"I don't know," said Jones.

The caress of the little jewelled hand destroyed his mental powers. He
dared not look at her, just sat staring before him.

"They told me all about the coal mine," she went on, "at least Venetia
did, and how they all bully-ragged you--Venetia was great on that.
Venetia waggled that awful gobbly-Jick head of hers while she was
telling me--they're _mad_ over the loss of that coal thing--oh, Ju-Ju,
I'm so glad you lost it. It's wicked, I suppose, but I'm glad. That's
what made me come back, the way they went on about you. I listened and
listened and then I broke out. I said all I've wanted to say for the
last six months to Venetia. You know she told me how you came home the
other night. I said nothing then, just listened and stored it up. Then,
last night, when they all got together about the coal mine I went on
listening and storing it up. Blunders was there as well as your mother
and Venetia. Blunders said he had called you an ass and that you were.
Then I broke out. I said a whole lot of things--well, there it is. So I
came back--there w