“Let be! let be!” said Mr. Flood impatiently. “Well, dear lady?” “Oh, I did! I’d read all your stuff. I believe I could write out _The Orchid House_ from memory still.” His eyes lit up as he challenged her— “‘Sour!’ said the fox at her feet, ‘How can she ripen windy-high? Sour!’ said the fox with his nose to the sky—” He was as pleased as a child with a toy when she capped it— “Then a grape dropped off. It was rotten sweet. There!” she flushed at him triumphantly. And then—“Now did you mean——? Who was in your mind? Were they anyone we know? I’ve always wanted to ask you.” But before he could answer her the blonde lady leaned forward and whispered in his ear. He turned to her with a glance of interest and amusement, but with his lips still moving and his mind still running on an answer to the Baxter girl. The blonde lady whispered again, and then he turned right round to answer her, shelving his arms on her knees. I couldn’t hear what they said, but it was just as if she had beckoned him into another room. He was withdrawn from the conversation and from the Baxter girl for as long as that blonde lady chose. Miss Howe looked at them with her broad smile. “Tell us, Beryl! We’re listening, anyhow!” she said invitingly. But the Baxter girl’s chin went up. The touch of annoyance in her voice made it twang, made her commonness suddenly noticeable. She was bearable when she was in awe of them, but now she was asserting herself, and that meant that she was inclined to be noisy. “Oh, my opinion doesn’t count, of course! But”—she swung like a pendulum between her two manners—“oh, I _did_ enjoy myself at first. It was the way you all talked. You knew everyone. You’d read everything. You frothed adventures. Like champagne it was, meeting all the people. I used to write my head off, the week after. And you were all kind to me from the first. I suppose it was Madala. She never let one feel out of it. But I thought it was all of you. I had the feeling—‘the gods _aren’t_ jealous gods.’ But now it’s” —she looked at them pertly—“it’s fog on Olympus.” “You needn’t—honour us, you know, Beryl,” said Anita sharply. She answered with her furtive look. “I know. And I don’t think—I don’t want to come as much as I did.” “In that case——” Anita ruffled up. “Fog! Fog!” cried Miss Howe clapping her hands. And then—“All the same, Nita, people are dropping off. The Whitneys haven’t been for weeks. When did Roy Huth come last? And the Golding crowd? I marvel that _he_ turns up still.” She nodded towards Kent Rehan. “Oh, you know, we’re like a row of beads when the string’s been pulled out. We lie in a line for a time, but a touch will send us rolling in all directions.” “Yes,” said the Baxter girl vehemently, “the heart’s out of it somehow. I’m not ungrateful. It’s just because I used to love coming so.” Miss Howe looked down at Anita, not unkindly.