“YOU have not come to see me for some time, Jack, yet we used to be good friends once, didn’t we? One seems to have one’s seasons for those kind of things, then they drop out. With sleeves, you know, one mustn’t keep the fashion on a bit too long. I have known dressmakers—but I won’t trouble you with my philosophy. I am going to have dear Mrs. Huntly and a charming cousin of hers to dinner, and so thought you might, perhaps, care to join us, though I’m candid enough to admit I hope it will not be merely for the charming cousin’s sake. “EDITH LE MENTIER.” Jack Hurstly read the note, written on rich, heavy cream, a tiny, definite hand between large margins. It all seemed very familiar to him. Three years ago there used to be a drawer full of them, though he had burned them of course, he remembered, after the scene in the garden. It had all been very graceful and harmless, and he had immensely admired and pitied her with her dense husband, who shattered her dainty little subtleties with a heavy word or two, and “called things,” as she plaintively remarked to Jack, “by their proper names, as if things,” she had added, “should ever be called by names at all, and least of all by their right ones.” Then he had met Muriel. He thought of that first evening, and of her frank, disarming look, and of how she not only did not say things she did not mean, but actually went so far as to say the things she did. It was a change from a little winding stream now here, now there, to a free, open lake with its clear reflection from the sky. It was natural that after this should come the scene in the garden; what he could not understand was this little dinner three years afterwards. Curiosity and Muriel’s wilful remoteness prompted him to accept the invitation; but he did so formally. Edith, when she read his letter, broke into a little laugh. “A joke, my dear?” her husband asked, looking over his newspaper across the breakfast table. “Certainly not, Ted,” said Edith; “I should never dream of laughing at a joke at breakfast time!” Her husband returned to his sporting notes—they seemed to him so much easier to understand. Mrs. le Mentier prepared to meet her guests by dressing in Jack Hurstly’s favorite color. It happened to be the one which suited her; but it is possible she would have worn it if it had not. It takes a woman longer than three years to forget a man’s favorite colors, and longer still not to wear them when she remembers. Gladys Travers was the first to arrive, with Mary Huntly’s brother, a deeply earnest young clergyman with thoughtful eyes. “Cyril had to bring me,” she said, smiling, “because Mary had a headache, one of those horrid dark-room ones, you know, with tea and toast. I don’t believe he quite approves though of dinner parties, do you, Cyril?” Mrs. le Mentier shook hands with him sympathetically.