He threw a look at that resplendent lady, whose high but not unmusical voice was riding the stream of talk. Her beautiful face and form, her graceful vivacity, and the perfection of her attire were such as naturally to have attracted round her magnet-wise the male filings of after-dinner re-assembly. Grafton himself, casting an unattached but attachable eye round him on entering the room, would have made his way instinctively to the group in which she was sitting. "Damn the woman!" he said vindictively. Caroline took hold of the lapels of his coat and kissed him, in defiance of company manners. "Hush, darling! The Bishop!" she said. Throughout the short hour that followed he was vivacious and subdued by turns. He had no more than a few words alone with his hostess. "Poor little B!" she said commiseratingly. "Yes, poor little B!" he echoed. "Are you sure it's that fellow?" "Oh, yes, she said so, when I asked her. I didn't tell her why I had asked. You can talk to her about it if you like." "Oh, good Lord, no!" he said. "I don't want to hear the fellow's name again. What has happened to him is nothing to me, if we've got rid of him. Of course I'm glad of it. It shows I was right about him. Now I shall get my little girl back again." It was the sort of speech that Caroline had vaguely feared. Ella Carruthers said, with a smile: "You can't expect to keep her long, you know. But I'm glad this is at an end, as you so much disliked it." Going home in the car, at a comparatively early hour, because bishops are supposed to want to go to bed on Sunday evenings, they talked it over. Bunting had heard the news from Barbara, and was inclined to take a serious view of it. "I think it's disgraceful to throw over a girl like that," he said. "What are you going to do about it, Dad?" "There's nothing to be done," said his father, "except to help B to forget all about him. Of course she'll be very much hurt, but when she's had time to think it over she'll see for herself that he wasn't worth what she gave him. It won't want any rubbing in. Better leave him alone altogether, and forget about him ourselves." Caroline put out her hand, and gave his a squeeze. Barbara said: "You were quite right about him, after all, Daddy." "Well, it looks like it," he answered. "But when somebody else has been hurt you're not going to help them get over it by saying, 'I told you so.' Poor little B has been hurt, and that's all we've got to put right at present." "There's the show coming on," said Bunting. "That'll interest her. And Jimmy will take care not to badger her at rehearsals. He's a kind-hearted chap, and he'll understand." "He's a pompous conceited little ass," said Barbara, in whom the remembrance of certain passages of the afternoon still rankled. "But perhaps he'll make her laugh, which will be something." "He can be very funny when he likes," said Bunting guilelessly.