Night, with its wonderful sensations, was behind them. Day revealed the shadow that had fallen. They unconsciously shrank from it and drew back into the shelter of their own misgivings. The joyous abandon of the night before was dead. Over its grave stood the leering spectre of unrest. When he took her in his arms later on, and kissed her, there was not the shadow of a doubt in the mind of either that the restraining influence of a condition over which they had no control was there to mock their endeavour to be natural. They were not to be deceived by the apparent earnestness of the embrace. Each knew that the other was asking a question, even as their lips met and clung in the rather pathetic attempt to confirm the fond dream of the night before. They kissed as through a veil. They were awake once more, and they were wary, unconvinced. The answer to their questions came in the kiss itself, and constraint fell upon them. Drawn by an impulse that had been struggling within him, Frederic found himself standing at the sitting-room window. It was a sly, covert, though intensely eager look that he directed at another window far below. If he hoped for some sign of life in his father's study he was to be disappointed. The curtains hung straight and motionless. He would have denied the charge that he longed to see Yvonne sitting in the casement, waiting to waft a sign of greeting up to him; he would have denied that the thought was in his mind when he went to the window; and yet he was conscious of a feeling of disappointment, even annoyance. With considerable adroitness Lydia engaged his attention at the piano. Keyed up as she was, his every emotion was plain to her perceptions. She had anticipated the motive that led him to the window. She knew that it would assert itself in spite of all that he could do to prevent. She waited humbly for the thing to happen, pain in her heart, and when her reading proved true she was prepared to combat its effect. Music was her only ally. “How does it go, Freddy--the thing you were playing before breakfast?” She was trying to pick up the elusive air. “It is such a fascinating, adorable thing. Is this right?” He looked at his watch. The few bars she had mastered in her eagerness fell upon inattentive ears at first. But she persisted. He came over and stood beside her. His long, slim fingers joined hers on the keyboard, and the sensuous strains of the waltz responded to his touch. He smiled patiently as she struggled to repeat what he had played. The fever of the thing took hold of him at last, as she had known it would. Leaning over her shoulder, his cheek quite close to hers, he played. Her hands dropped into her lap.