There was a ball the first night, and Muriel danced in a dream of delight at the old easy ways, and all the beauties of sight and sound and sense. Gladys was away on a visit, so the return to civilization was marked by no jar of severed friendship. A day spent on the river with one of those groups, where each one knows his neighbor well enough for associations to make past pleasures present ones, and yet not too deeply to be able to play lightly on the surface of personalities, made Muriel thirsty for more. It is true that there were strained relationships even there, though hidden with a cultivated ease; but she refused to see them, and let herself be soothed into a fairyland of fancies. Mary had arranged as a climax a tea-party in the gardens. “Of course,” she said apologetically, “one knows they aren’t private, but it’s the best place in the world to wander, if only on that account. Wandering I always think the chief charm of tea out-of-doors; it’s a compensation for one’s hair being blown about and the butter melting.” “It all depends on having the right person to wander with,” suggested her companion. “Well, but what are all our social efforts but an attempt to find the right person—and then wander?” laughed Mrs. Huntly. “It’s the magic lottery that makes London seasons, and keeps up house-parties——” “And finally limits one to a wedding ring,” interrupted one of the group. “Or charms one away from the limits!” ventured a daring young man to Muriel. She felt vaguely uncomfortable, these children of light played so near the brink of things. “I don’t think I quite know what you mean,” she said gravely. “He doesn’t mean anything,” said Mary Huntly shortly. The young man turned to someone with whom he needn’t explain. Muriel wondered whether she would enjoy wandering in the gardens. “At any rate I shall not have the right person,” she thought. When the afternoon came the overpowering youthfulness of spring danced in her veins, and made it easy for the unpleasant to pass from her mind. She was with a little group who had not yet separated to wander, when she saw a woman whom she had known crossing the grass at a little distance from where they sat. “Why, there is Sally Covering,” she cried. “It seems years since I have seen her!” There was a moment’s awkward silence. Muriel looked in astonishment from one to the other. They all began to talk in the way of people who wish to ignore an impossible moment. Alec Bruce, who was one of the party, asked her an irrelevant question, but she brushed it aside. “I am going to speak to her,” she said. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Alec. They spoke rapidly, and Muriel felt the color rush to her face. She felt annoyed with herself for speaking at all; but now that she had spoken she would not be a coward, so she walked the intervening space, and came up with the woman.