The Frenchwoman bore the rebuke in silence. She had fulfilled the instructions so carefully instilled into her artful but shallow brain, and all her efforts just now being devoted to pleasing her new _cher ami_, as she considered the master of The Hut, she was content to leave it at that. Nugent had not confided to her how he expected or wished Miss Maynard to behave on hearing what he had instructed Louise to tell her. As soon as her toilet was complete Violet descended to the drawing-room, where Aunt Sarah was talking to the Mallorys, who were the only guests who had as yet arrived. In spite of having parted with Reggie Beauchamp that morning Enid was in high spirits, and looked delightfully fresh in her dinner dress of virginal white. She was merrily receiving somewhat pessimistic congratulations on her engagement from Aunt Sarah, who was laying it down that to marry a man liable to be drowned at any moment was simply flying in the face of Providence. Nugent and Chermside arrived together, and when Montague Maynard came bursting in in the wake of the few remaining guests dinner was announced, and they adjourned to the dining-room. To Violet the meal was a tedious function that night. She was brimming over with mixed excitement over the implied aspersion cast by Louise on her lover, and she was longing to share the absurdity, as she considered it, with him. She had much ado to restrain herself from mentioning it at the dinner-table, but she realized that it was hardly a matter to be made fun of before the servants. Moreover, she noticed that Leslie was looking pale and preoccupied, and by no means in a mood to appreciate the humour of a jest so grimly personal. She was afraid he was going to be ill. On all accounts it would be wiser to postpone telling him till they were alone. As it happened, it was not to Leslie that she was destined to first moot the subject of Louise's treacherous confidence. When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner the human pack chanced to get so shuffled that Violet found herself for the moment paired off with Travers Nugent, and unable to obtain speech with her lover. It was not for her to know that Nugent had carefully arranged his entry into the drawing-room with a view to securing a _tête-à-tête_ with her. Eagerly awaiting Leslie's appearance, she had seated herself alone near the door, and Nugent, coming in ahead of the rest of the men, at once monopolized her. "The Queen of the Manor is looking radiant," he said in his silky accents, assuming the air of deference which carried him far with most of his female acquaintances. "I am not feeling very radiant, or even good-tempered--with you," replied Violet. Baulked of her wish to have it out with Leslie, she was seized with a desire to rend in pieces, figuratively, of course, this debonair gentleman who had busied himself to shield one who by no possible chain of circumstances could need any shielding.