As the evening advances, Jim sees an intention among the younger portion of the company to launch out into noisy, romping games, to institute a Dumb Crambo. He feels it is far from impossible that he himself may fall so low as to be drawn into it. Miss Strutt's eye is on him, but before he succumbs he will make one effort on his own behalf. He embraces a desperate resolution. He has seen the Le Marchants eating their dinner near, and yet hopelessly far from him. Elizabeth had given him one furtive smile, and her mother a hurried bow; this is, to tell the truth, all the encouragement he has to go upon--all that he can find to keep his courage up as he knocks at their door, telling himself that his excuse--that of asking them to lend him a book--is a quite sufficient and legitimate one. He knocks, and Elizabeth's voice at once answers: "Herein!" It is clear that she takes him for the German waiter, Fritz. She remains in this belief even after he has opened the door, since she does not at first look up. She is alone--not in the pretty flowered room in which she had yesterday received him, but in the first and less adorned of the little series--one that he had, on his former visit, cursorily supposed to be chiefly used as an ante-room--sitting alone at a table, and before her are spread writing-materials, over which she is stooping. An odious and ridiculous thought darts, with a prick, across his mind. Is she sitting here, all alone, in order to write to Byng? "I came----" he begins; and at the unexpected voice she looks up with a start: "Oh, it is you!" she says, in a low key, glancing rather apprehensively at the closed door, which separates them from the inner room, in a manner which tells him that her parents are within. "I came"--his voice almost unconsciously sinking to the level hers has indicated to him--"to ask you to lend me a book." "A book!" she repeats doubtfully, with another and still more nervous glance at the shut door; "I am afraid that they are all in there." "Oh, it is of no consequence!" rejoins Burgoyne hastily, unwittingly quoting the words of the immortal Mr. Toots; "it does not matter in the least." As he speaks, he begins to retreat towards the door, but so slowly as to give her plenty of time to recall him had she so wished. But she does not. She only stands looking uncertain and distressed. He cannot take such a melancholy impression of her little face away for the whole night with him--it would give him the blues too seriously after this dismal day--so he takes a step or two forward again. "Are not you rather lonely?" he asks, with an expressive look round. She gives a small, uncomplaining smile. "Oh no; I do very well. I am generally alone at this time of day; they like to have their evenings to themselves--at least, father likes to have mammy to himself; I am sure it is quite natural." There is not the slightest trace of any sense of being aggrieved in either words or tone.