"Yes, do come to-morrow! I seem to have a hundred things to say to you. I'm sorry we wasted the little time we had to-day in talking over those tiresome people and their matrimonial affairs."

There was also a look of regret in her face, and suddenly he told himself that he might have been mistaken just now, and that she had meant nothing--nothing in the least personal or--or probing, in what she had said. "Look here!" he said awkwardly. "If there's anything you really want to say--you said you had a hundred things to tell me--would you like me to come back for a few minutes? There's no great hurry, you know--I mean about Tropenell and his game."

She shook her head, and to his moved surprise, the tears came into her pretty brown eyes. "No, not now. I'm tired, Godfrey. It's rather absurd, but I haven't really got over my journey yet; I think I shall have to take your advice, and stay at home rather more."

For a long moment they advanced towards one another as if something outside themselves was drawing them together. Then Godfrey Pavely put out his hand, and grasped hers firmly. It was almost as if he was holding her back--at arm's length.

Katty laughed nervously. She shook her hand free of his, opened the door wide, and exclaimed: "Well! Good-bye till to-morrow then. My love to Laura."

He nodded, and was gone.

She shut the door behind him, and, turning, went slowly upstairs. She felt tired, weak, upset--and, what she did not often feel, restless and unhappy as well. It irritated her--nay, it did more than irritate, it hurt her shrewdly--to think of those three people who were about to spend a pleasant couple of hours together. She could so easily, so safely, have made a fourth at their constant meetings.

If only Laura Pavely were a little less absorbed in herself, a little more what ordinary people called good-natured! It would have been so natural for Laura, when she knew that Oliver Tropenell was coming to dinner, to send across to Rosedean, and ask her, Katty, to make a fourth. It was not as if Laura was at all jealous. She was as little jealous of Godfrey and of Katty--and at that thought Katty gave a queer, bitter little laugh which startled her, for she had laughed aloud--as was Godfrey of Laura and Oliver! With as little or as much reason? Katty would have given a great deal to be able to answer her own question. She thought she knew half the answer--but it was, alas! by far the less important half.

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