"You love Brett, and you are nice to Mrs. Darche, though you hate her," said Vanbrugh in a tone which left Dolly in doubt as to whether he was in earnest or only chaffing. She paused a moment and stared at him before she answered, and then to his great astonishment spoke with more coldness than he was accustomed to. "Precisely," she said. "I love Mrs. Darche and I hate Brett because he does not ask her to marry him as he should, now that Darche has been dead so long. I am sorry, Marion," she said, turning to Mrs. Darche, and going up to her rather suddenly, "dear--I really must be going." "Already?" exclaimed Marion in surprise, "it is not three o'clock?" "Almost," said Dolly, "and I have lots to do--ever so many people waiting for me at a Committee, and then a visit I must make, and a frock to try on--and then if we are to dine at seven so as to be dressed in time for the tableaux there is no afternoon at all." "How busy you are! Yet you always look so fresh! How in the world do you do it?" "A large appetite and a clear conscience--" suggested Brett, who seemed to be more than usually absent-minded. Dolly glanced at him rather angrily as she shook hands with her friend. "Good-bye, dear Marion. It has been ever so nice! Good-bye." She left the room. Vanbrugh was annoyed and discomforted by her sudden departure, but he made the best of the situation, and after closing the door behind her, sat down beside Mrs. Willoughby, who was listening to one of Brown's stories. "I suppose she is angry with me," said Brett to Marion. "What did I say? I was thinking of something else." "Then why did you choose that moment for speaking of her?" asked Mrs. Darche reproachfully. "You really must take care, you will make enemies." "Of course. What does it matter?" "It matters to me, if you make enemies of my friends." "That is different," said Brett. "But seriously--do not people forgive a lack of tact sometimes--being a little absent-minded? Look at Jim Brown." "That is quite another thing," Marion answered. "Yes--I heard what he was telling as we came into the room after the luncheon. Of course it was tactless. Of course no man in his senses should talk in a loud tone, before me, of a man falling overboard at sea and being drowned, still less--" "What?" asked Brett. A short pause followed the question, and when Marion answered it, it was evident that she was making an effort. "Still less of the possibility that such a man might be heard of again some day." "That at least is improbable," said Brett, very gravely. "I shivered when I heard what he said." "I do not wonder." In the meantime, at the other end of the room, Mr. Brown was enjoying at last the supreme satisfaction of talking without reserve about the story he had seen in the papers that morning. "One never knows what to believe," said Mrs. Willoughby.