He ordered tea, then sat down anxiously to wait for Miss Van Tuyn. From his corner he watched her colloquy with the two school friends from Philadelphia, and it seemed to him that something very important was being told. For Fanny Cronin looked almost animated, and her manner approached the emphatic as she spoke to the standing girl. Mrs. Hodson seemed to take very little part in the conversation, but sat looking very determined and almost imperious as she listened. And presently Braybrooke saw her extremely observant dark eyes--small, protuberant and round as buttons--turn swiftly, with even, he thought, a darting movement, in his direction. “I shall be driven, really driven, to make the matter quite clear,” he thought, almost with desperation. “Otherwise--” But at this moment Miss Van Tuyn came away to him, and their tea was brought by a waiter. He thought she cast a rather satirical look at him as she sat down, but she only said; “Dear old things! They are very happy together. Mrs. Clem is extraordinarily proud of having ‘got Fanny out,’ as she calls it. A boy who had successfully drawn a badger couldn’t be more triumphant. Now let’s forget them!” This was all very well, and Braybrooke asked for nothing better; but he was totally unable to forget the two cronies, whom he saw in the distance with their white and chestnut heads alarmingly close together, talking eagerly, and, he was quite sure, not about the dear old days in Philadelphia. What had they--or rather what had Miss Cronin said to Miss Van Tuyn? He longed to know. It really was essential that he should know. Yet he scarcely knew how to approach the subject. It was rather difficult to explain elaborately to a beautiful girl that you had not the least wish to marry her. He was certainly not at his best as he took his first cup of tea and sought about for an opening. Miss Van Tuyn talked with her usual assurance, but he fancied that her violet eyes were full of inquiry when they glanced at him; and he began to feel positive that the worst had happened, and that Fanny Cronin had informed her--no, misinformed her--of what had happened at Claridge’s. Now and then, as he met Miss Van Tuyn’s eyes, he thought they were searching his with an unusual consciousness, as if they expected something very special from him. Presently, too, she let the conversation languish, and at last allowed it to drop. In the silence that succeeded Braybrooke was seized by a terrible fear that perhaps she was waiting for him to propose. If he did propose she would refuse him of course. He had no doubt about that. But though to be accepted by her, or indeed by anyone, would have caused him acute distress, on the other hand no one likes to be refused.