Her voice was drowned in a ringing chord on the piano, and as the prelude to a song filled the room, she made a mocking gesture expressive of the impossibility of making herself heard; and turning her face towards the singer, as she stood by Falconer’s side, she composed herself to listen. Her face grew rather set and fixed in its lines of animated attention as the song went on, and when it ceased, her comments were of the indefinitely delighted order. She made them very easily and brightly, however, and then she turned carelessly to Falconer. “Are you thinking of staying long?” she said lightly. “I rather want to talk to you, do you know--this unfortunate man is my man of business, you must know, Mrs. Halse--and I thought perhaps that I could drive you somewhere.” “I shall be happy to go whenever you like,” was the grave answer. Mrs. Romayne laughed lightly. “Oh, I don’t want to take you away immediately!” she said. “You’ve only just come, I’m afraid. In a little while!” She smiled and nodded to him, and to Mrs. Halse and Miss Newton, and moved away to speak to some other people. About a quarter of an hour later Falconer, who was a somewhat grim ornament to society in the interval, saw her coming smiling towards him. “Ready?” she said. “That’s very nice of you! Suppose we go, then?” He followed her out of the room and down the stairs, her flow of comments and laughter never ceasing; put her into her carriage, and got in himself. “Home!” she said sharply to the coachman. The door banged, they rolled away into the darkness and the wet, and her voice stopped suddenly. They rolled along for a few minutes in total silence. Shut up alone with her like that, the isolation and quiet following so suddenly on the crowd and noise of a moment before, Falconer’s only conscious feeling was one of almost stupid discomfort. Her sudden silence, too, had an indefinable but very unpleasant effect upon him. At last he said with awkward displeasure: “I was going to write to you! I----” She lifted her hand quickly and stopped him. “When we get in!” she said in a quick, tense voice. “You can come in? It is just six. It need not take long.” “I am quite at your service.” She leant back in her corner with a sharp breath of relief, and neither moved nor spoke again until the carriage drew up at her own door. She opened the door with a latchkey, and moved quickly across the hall to the foot of the stairs, motioning to Falconer to follow her. Then she stopped abruptly and turned. A servant was just crossing the hall to the dining-room, where the preliminary preparation for a dinner-party could be seen. “Is Mr. Julian in?” said Mrs. Romayne sharply. “Not yet, ma’am.” “If he should come in before I go to dress, tell him that I am engaged.” She turned again and went on to the drawing-room.