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like a sick herring the whole afternoon, poor old thing, and it would be just like him to get into one of his jealous rages and muck the whole show. He ought to know by now that her head was screwed on the right way. The trouble with him was that he'd got a lot of pre-war ideas about women and honour. lt was rather sweet of him, of course, but utterly pathetic in these hard times. Damn! it was ten to eight already, and she hadn't done her eyelashes. Oh, well, they'd have to stay as they were: no sense in putting the old man's brick up by being late for his filthy dinner-party.
    Downstairs, in the long white-panelled drawing-room, Fay, drilled into punctuality, had been awaiting her guests since twenty minutes to eight. She was looking tired, but pretty, in a flowered frock that was like the chintzes on the chairs - cool, and mistily tinted. Stephen Guest had come into the drawing-room behind her. She smiled at him, that wistful smile that tore at his heart, and put her hands to arrange his tie - a lamentable bow, already askew.
    "Dear Stephen!" she murmured, the hint of a tender laugh in her voice. "Why don't you buy one with broad ends? It would be so much easier to tie."
    He couldn't bear it when she stood so close to him, looking up at him with her gentle blue eyes. Suddenly he put his arms round her, holding her tightly to him. "Fay, you've got to come to it. We can't go on like this. I'm only n mortal, you know." His voice was thickened and rough, his mouth was seeking hers.
    "Please don't, Stephen!" she said faintly. "Oh, please don't! Arthur - the servants. Stephen, be kind to me; be patient with me!"
    He let her go, breathing rather fast, his square face flushed. "See here, Fay! You love me, and I love you. We're all hedged in here by these God-darned conventions. One of these days things'll get too much for me, and I'll go plumb through the lot of them, and there'll be one fine show-down. Can't you make up your mind to face the music, and come away with me? We won't stay in England - the Lord knows I've had enough of the place. Too much stiff shirt and kid gloves about it. I'll take you any place you say. We won't defend the case; you don't need to set foot inside the Divorce Courts."
    "I couldn't. It's wicked of us! I oughtn't to have asked you to come, only I wanted you so. Dinah thinks it was rotten of me, and she's right. It is rotten; only if I'm never even to see you I might as well be dead."
    At sight of her distress the angry colour in his face died. He took her hand and patted it clumsily. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to upset you, dear. You've got enough to worry you without me adding to it. Only, we've got to find some solution, haven't we? But we won't talk about it now. I'm just here to be leaned on, and to help you any way I can."
    Her eyes filled. "You're so good to me, Stephen. I'm a rotter to let you waste your life for my sake."
    He would have answered her, but Sir Arthur's voice sounded in the hall, and in another moment he had entered the room, followed by Finch, with a tray of cocktails which he set down on a table against the wall. Somewhere in the distance an electric bell rang, and Fay said with forced brightness: "I expect that's the Chudleighs. They're always on time."
    It was not the Chudleighs, however, but Mrs. Twining who was presently announced.
    Mrs. Twining was a widow who might have been any age between forty-five and sixty. She lived rather less than five miles away and was a frequent visitor at the Grange. She said that, having been acquainted with Arthur for so many years, she considered herself a privileged person. She was in the habit of making this observation with a faintly mocking lift of her arched brows, but the General, possibly because he knew her so weII, usually refused to be drawn.
    When she first took up her abode in the neighbourhood she was eyed a little suspiciously. She was so perfectly dressed that naturally people felt that she might nut be quite the type of person