To be forced into laughter, real, honest, uncontrollable laughter, as opposed to the forced guffaw of society, seemed a new experience to this only child of busy and pre-occupied parents; and it needed only Arthur's assurance that he had never seen the girl so bright and animated to put the final touch to Peggy's growing liking. On the present occasion Eunice and her mother had come to tea at the hotel, and as Rosalind and Hector were also expected within the next half-hour, it was quite necessary that Peggy should get her eyes in order without delay. She was not in a mood to give a cordial welcome to the destroyer of her brother's happiness, and, despite her efforts to the contrary, there was a chill in her manner which Rosalind was quick to note. It worried her, as it had worried her in the old girlish days when Peggy Saville had refused to pay the homage which she expected from her companions, and now, as then, she put forth all her fascinations in order to subdue the unruly spirit. The princess in the fairy-tale seemed again the only creature to whom to compare her as she sat enthroned on the sofa, her lovely face alight with smiles and dimples. Eunice Rollo looked like a little grey mouse beside her, the very colour seeming to be absorbed from her face by the brilliancy of the contrast, while bonnie Mellicent appeared of a sudden awkward and blousy. "Rosalind makes every one else look a fright, the moment she comes into a room. I shudder to think of the guy I must appear. Poor dear Arthur! I don't wonder at his devotion. She is so lovely that she fascinates one in spite of oneself!" sighed Peggy, trying to harden herself against the glances of the sweet caressing eyes, and feeling her heart softening with every moment that passed. All her thoughts were centred on Rosalind and Arthur, and she presided over the tea-tray with a sublime absence of mind which afforded Hector Darcy much amusement. His own cup was filled last of all, and seating himself beside her he gravely extracted from it six separate lumps of sugar, which he ranged in a neat little row on a plate. "Seeing that you asked me twice over if I took sugar, and on hearing that I did not, immediately ladled in the largest pieces you could find, I conclude that there is something weighing on your mind," he said markedly. "What is it? Nothing unpleasant, I hope--nothing serious?" "A bad habit of thinking of several things at the same time, coupled with the fatigues of a London season. That is the explanation!" sighed Peggy, patting the discarded lumps into a pulp with her spoon, and moulding them into pyramid shape with as earnest an air as if her life depended on the operation. "We have been terribly energetic--flying about all day long and living in a perfect whirl of excitement." "And yet I never meet you. I look out for you every day, but in vain. We never seem to go to the same places."