Adele did not expect any of her guests till tea-time, and Marcia and she both retired for after-lunch siestas. Adele had been down here for the last four or five days, driving up to Marcia’s ball and back in the very early morning, and had three days before settled everything in connection with her party, assigning rooms, discussing questions of high importance with her chef, and arranging to meet as many trains as possible. It so happened, therefore, that Stephen Merriall, since the house was full, was to occupy the spacious dressingroom, furnished as a bedroom, next Lucia’s room, which had been originally allotted to Pepino. Adele had told her butler that Mr. Lucas was not coming, but that his room would be occupied by Mr. Merriall, thought no more about it, and omitted to substitute a new card on his door. These two rooms were half way down a long corridor of bedrooms and bathrooms that ran the whole length of the house, a spacious oak-boarded corridor, rather dark, with the broad staircase coming up at the end of it. Below was the suite of public rooms, a library at the end, a big music-room, a long gallery of a drawing-room, and the dining-room. These all opened on to a paved terrace overlooking the gardens and tennis courts, and it was here, with the shadow of the house lying coolly across it, that her guests began to assemble. In ones and twos they gathered, some motoring down from London, others arriving by train, and it was not till there were some dozen of them, among whom were the most fervent Luciaphils, that the object of their devotion, attended by her lover, made her appearance, evidently at the top of her form. “Dearest Adele,” she said. “How delicious to get into the cool country again. Marcia dear! Such adventures I had on my way up to your ball: two burst tyres; I thought I should never get there. How are you, your Excellency? I saw you at the Duchess’s, but couldn’t get a word with you. Aggie darling! Ah, Lord Tony! Yes, a cup of tea would be delicious; no sugar, Stephen, thanks.” Lucia had not noticed quite everybody. There were one or two people rather retired from the tea-table, but they did not seem to be of much importance, and certainly the Prime Minister was not among them. Stephen hovered, loverlike, just behind her chair, and she turned to the Italian Ambassador. “I was afraid of a motor accident all the way down,” she said, “because last night I dreamed I broke a looking-glass. Quaint things dreams are, though really the psycho-analysts who interpret them are quainter. I went to a meeting at Sophy’s, dear Sophy Alingsby, the other day--your Excellency I am sure knows Sophy Alingsby--and heard a lecture on it. Let me see: boiled rabbit, if you dream of boiled rabbit----” Lucia suddenly became aware of a sort of tension. Just a tension. She looked quickly round, and recognized one of the men she had not paid much attention to. She sprang from her chair.