“I wouldn’t have a bailiff for a friend if you paid me a million,” said Eleanor, who had been brought up in an atmosphere of financial embarrassment. “I’d sooner have a burglar. Don’t you worry about our young Di, Arthur. She’s all there! Personally speaking, I’m glad she’s arrived. What about me--haven’t I any morals? Hasn’t me and cook--cook and I, that is to say--lived in the same house with a bachelor for a year?” “You’re different,” said Trenter. “Guess again,” said Eleanor. “The house hasn’t been what it was.” A touch of sadness in Trenter’s voice had its origin in obscure sources. Methodical as Gordon was, he never counted his cigars. Diana, on the other hand, had an eye for quantity. It was she who asked delicately whether he thought there were mice in the house, and, if so, did he think that they preferred Coronas to cheese. “There’s a big change coming--a terrific change. I feel it in my bones,” he said. “And I know! I’ve always had second sight even as a boy.” “You should wear glasses,” said Eleanor. CHAPTER V On an afternoon in late summer Heloise van Oynne looked across the darkening river, seemed for a moment absorbed in the gay lighting of one of the moored house-boats, and then: “Tell me some more about Diana, please. She must be fas-cinating!” she pleaded. Her companion shifted a little uncomfortably. He had already said more about Diana than he wished or intended saying. “Well ... you know all about Diana. I hope you will meet her ... some day.” There was just that little pause before the last word that meant so much to a woman with an acute sense of tone, and Heloise was supersensitive because it was her business to be. To-day she seemed unusually ethereal. She was pretty, slim (Diana would have called her “skinny”), spirituelle. In the deep, dark eyes was mystery ... elusiveness; something that occasionally made his flesh creep pleasantly. Gordon Selsbury was not in love. He was not the easily loving kind. It pleased him to know that he had a mystery of his own--he had once been described as “sphinx-like.” If Diana had been older and were not his cousin, and had not in her masterful way installed herself in his house, defiant of the conventions, and were not so infernally sarcastic and self-sufficient--well, he might feel nicer toward her. Talking of Diana.... He looked at the watch on his wrist. He had told her he would be in for dinner. Heloise saw the movement and smiled inwardly. “Was it serious, that affair of hers?” she asked gently. Gordon coughed. Heloise never met him but she talked of Diana’s affair. It was a curious piece of femininity that he did not expect to find in a woman. Not his kind of woman. He was relieved of the necessity for answering. “Who is that man, Gordon?” The skiff had passed twice under the hotel terrace where they sat at tea that afternoon, and twice the big, red-faced man had peered up at the two people. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t we be going?”