“Poor dear Nancy! Wasn’t it awful?” “Didn’t I tell you Uncle Albert was a terror? But you don’t think he really _talks_ like me, Nancy, do you? Billy _will_ say he _does_!” “Theo! He can _easily_ hear you from his room, and the window’s open. Oh, I do hope that when I’m engaged my young man won’t have _quite_ such loud relations!” “Better than having deceitful whispery voices and saying horrid things in them about you behind your back,” retorted Theo. “And anyhow, Uncle Albert did _like_ her!” “Yes,” said Blanche, deprecatingly, “but isn’t it nearly as terrible as if he disapproved?” “It’s _worse_,” I decided to myself as I dressed for dinner, in my white, to please Theo, who apparently has some mysterious child’s reason for wanting me to wear that particular frock to-night. “Even if one were madly in love, a relation like that would be quite enough to make one wonder if it were worth it! Yes! Even if one were _really_ engaged to be married to a man—the man Mr. Waters would ‘pity,’ one would break it off rather than put up with such an uncle-in-law. Well! Thank goodness I’m spared _that_ at all events! I hope Uncle Albert won’t pay many of his visits of inspection during the next year. One or two ought to be enough for him, and I’ve taken the plunge now,” thought I, “and got it over. He can’t go on being much more awful at dinner!” CHAPTER XVII THEO SITS UP Yes! It was all of a piece with the fiascoes of the day that my little watch gained ten minutes, hurrying me through my dressing and down, before I’d any need for such haste, into the drawing-room. Here, big and black-and-white against the giant pink roses of the chintz couch, I found (as I needn’t have hoped not to find, on this day of _contretemps_!) my employer alone. He sprang to his feet, of course, and wheeled forward a chair for me (looking as if he wished he could have pushed it and me through the French windows and out of the house for ever!—Goodness knows I reciprocated that wish!) and I sat down. Then ensued what I’m beginning to call to myself “one of our pauses.” But I felt that this evening my nerves wouldn’t stand silence—that nothing could float me over these quicksands of awkwardness but an unceasing ripple of small-talk. If _he_ wouldn’t, I must say something; anything! The first thing that came into my head! “H—how close it is! Do you think there will be thunder to-night?” There was suppressed thunder enough on his face as he answered politely: “It is getting rather stifling. Perhaps you would like the window open?” and he rose and walked across to it. Then, from under the chintz valance of the couch where he’d been sitting, there emerged at small and cringing form with an enormous white satin bow tied to his collar. “Poor Cariad!” I went on, patting the unusually subdued little dog, “you _have_ got a smart new tie! Don’t you like it?”