"Will you introduce me?" asked Daphne. "I should like to know her. See, she has just sent away her partner. Take me over and leave me with her, and then you will be free to run off and find the charmer I can see you are so anxious about." The hapless Carthew having asserted, this time with considerably more sincerity, that he had now no further thoughts of dancing, the introduction was effected. The sequel lay this morning upon Daphne's breakfast-tray, amid a heap of invitations--Daphne was in great request at present--in the form of a note, written upon thick blue paper, in a large and rather ostentatious feminine hand. It ran-- "DEAR LADY CARR,--Don't consider me a forward young person if I ask you to be an angel and come and lunch with me to-day. I know all sorts of ceremonies ought to be observed before such a climax is reached; but will you take them for granted and _come_? We had such a tiny talk last night, and I do so want to know you better. I have been dying to make your acquaintance ever since I first saw you.--Sincerely yours, "NINA TALLENTYRE." Daphne was not the sort of girl to take it amiss that she, a married woman of twenty-three, with a husband and baby of her own, should informally be bidden to a feast by a young person previously unknown to her, who possessed neither. In any case the last sentence would have been too much for her vanity. She scribbled a note of acceptance to Miss Tallentyre's invitation, and set about her morning toilet. Once downstairs, she paid her regulation punctilious visit to the library, where her husband was usually to be found until twelve o'clock. She inquired in her breezy fashion after the health of the Mother of Parliaments, and expressed a hope that her spouse had come home at a reasonable hour and enjoyed a proper night's rest. She next proceeded to the orders of the day. "Are you dining out to-night, dear?" she inquired. "Yes, for my sins! A City dinner at six-thirty." "You'll be bad the morn!" quoted Lady Carr. "True for you, Daphne. Are you going anywhere?" "No." "Well, you had better have Carthew to dine with you, and then he can take you to the theatre afterwards. Sorry I can't manage it my--for our two selves," he added, guiltily conscious of Mrs Carfrae's recent homily. But Daphne was quite satisfied with the arrangement, which she designated top-hole. "Now I am off shopping," she announced. "After that I am lunching with a girl I met last night; then Hurlingham, with the Peabodys. If you are going gorging at six-thirty, I probably shan't see you again to-day; so I'll say good-night now. Pleasant dreams! I am off to play with Baby before I go out. So long!"