“No, you must mention no name, at any rate till the engagement is announced,” said Phœbe. “It would never do.” “Perhaps you are right, Phœbe,” said the other. “I shall have a long morning’s work to-morrow.” Colonel Raymond in the meantime was walking to the club, rather quicker than his wont was. He almost forgot to look interesting for the benefit of passers-by in the excitement of possessing, and that by his own extraordinary shrewdness, this family secret. His momentary annoyance at not having been the first to have known it was quite overscored by the delight in knowing it now, and though he had been disposed for a second or two to consider it to be an impertinence on the part of Miss Clifford that she, though indirectly, was the channel by which it was conveyed to him, the anticipation of the flutter he would make at the club more than compensated for it. He did not intend to state the secret boldly; he proposed to make a mystery of it, to set people on the right track, and to refuse to answer any questions, for if there was anything which the Colonel loved more than imparting information in a superior manner, it was withholding it in the same irritating way. “I’m late, gentlemen,” he cried, in his bluff, hearty manner, as he entered the smoking-room; “I’m late, and I cry ‘peccavi.’ But it is not altogether my fault. I’ve been down to my cousins at Bolton Street. They all are very much excited about it, of course--why, God bless my soul, I nearly let it out.” From a dark corner of the room there came a faint rustle as of a paper being folded, and Arthur Avesham’s head looked over the corner of the Evening Standard, and back again, as quick as a lizard. “But we must get to our whist,” continued the unconscious Colonel. “Whist and wine wait for no men. And, talking of wine, get me a glass of port, a glass of port, waiter, and bring it to the card-room, and don’t be all day about it.” The Colonel was in rather an _exalté_ mood that afternoon, and just as his bluff heartiness was a shade more pronounced than usual, so, too, were his immoderate remarks when his partner did not play his hand correctly. “Bumble-puppy, the merest bumble-puppy,” he roared. “It’s a pure waste of time playing a game like this, and to call it whist is a profanation. Ah, we got the odd, did we? I thought you had secured it. You ought to have. That puts us out. Well, well, as we are out I’ll say no more about it, but we ought never to have got out. It’s the principle of the thing for which I go.” A few minutes later the door opened and Arthur entered. The Colonel was sorting his hand with angry snorts and growls and did not notice his entrance. Arthur took a seat near the table where the Colonel and his party were playing, and watched the game. The Colonel finished sorting his hand first, and was not apparently satisfied with it, for he burst into a torrent of angry recrimination.