ruling him out of her life. Perhaps this evening, after the glamour of Mr. Symeon's assembly, she was "fey." This sudden rush of gladness, this ecstasy of reunion with the friend from whom she had compassed heaven and earth to hold herself aloof, seemed more than the gladness of common day. She trod on air; and when they pulled up suddenly at Hyde Park Comer, it was a surprise to find that they had not been walking towards Portland Place. "We must make for Stanhope Gate and cross Grosvenor Square and Bond Street," Claude said gaily. "We have come a long way round, but a walk is a walk, and I have no doubt we both wanted one. Perhaps you would prefer a cab." "No, I like walking, if there is time." "Plenty of time. You walk like Atalanta, if that young person ever condescended to anything but a run." "Do you remember our walks in the woods, and the afternoon we lost our way and could not get home for the nursery tea?" "You mean when I lost my way, and you had to tramp the shoes off your dear little feet. Brave little minx, I shall never forget how plucky you were, and how you kept back the tears when your lips quivered with pain." Once launched upon reminiscences of that golden summer there was no gap in their talk till the lions' heads were frowning at them on the threshold of Vera's home. She was flushed with her walk, and the colour in cheeks that were generally pale gave a new brightness to her eyes. That long talk of her childish days had taken her out of her present life. She was a child again, happy in the present moment, without the wisdom that looks before and after. "Good-bye," said Claude; and then, pausing, with his hand on the moody lion, "if you had some vague idea of asking me to dinner, it would be a kindness to give shape to the notion, for I shan't get a dinner anywhere else. My mother is in the country, and a solitary meal at a restaurant is worse than a funeral." Vera hesitated, with a faint blush, not being able utterly to forget her determination to keep Claude Rutherford out of her daily life. "Lady Okehampton expects to find me alone," she said. "But you have Susie Amphlett?" "Susie invited herself." "As I am doing. Three women! What a funereal feast; as bad as Domitian's black banquet. Your aunt dotes upon me, and so does Susan. You will score by having secured me. You can say I threw over a long engagement for the sake of meeting them. I dare say there is some solemn dinner invitation stuck in my chimney glass. I often forget such things." The doors were flung open, and the suave man in black and his liveried lieutenants awaited their mistress's entrance. "_A ce soir_," said Claude, as he hailed a prowling hansom; and he was seated in it, smiling at her with lifted hat, before Vera had time to answer him. "Mr. Rutherford will dine here this evening," she told the butler. CHAPTER X