"Goodness, Clementina, here's that impossible Mrs Jones! I thought we had avoided her so successfully. _Must_ speak now, I suppose. There's no way of dodging her. `_Dear_ Mrs Jones, how _do_ you do? Such _ages_ since we met. Is this your daughter? Grown out of knowledge! It seems but the othah day she was a little girl in short frocks. Quite impossible, don't you know, to associate _you_ with a grown-up daughter! Sorry to hurry on, but really--so _many_ friends!' Oh, there's Lord Algernon Fitznobody coming down that path! Don't let him pass! Waggle your parasol, Clementina! Cough! Sneeze! Do something to make him see us! `Don't you remember me, Lord Algernon? How quite too naughty of you! Mrs Ponsonby de Tomkins, whose purse you picked up in the railway station in Lausanne. I have heard so much of you since then, for my sister's aunt's cousin's husband is quite an intimate friend of dear Lady Fitzroy--' Well, really, Clementina, he need not have rushed away in such a hurry! He seemed very distrait. He was looking round for somebody else all the time. Now, see, he is hurrying off to meet her. _Ah-h_!" The deep exclamation of understanding was uttered in the speaker's natural voice, as, following the direction of the good lady's glance, Peggy suddenly divined the reason of "Lord Algernon's" pre-occupation. Rosalind Darcy was approaching, surrounded by the usual bevy of admirers, her parasol tilted over her shoulder, and her lips curved into a smile of artificial sweetness. It was easy to see that her affectation of interest in what was being said was of the thinnest possible description and Peggy wondered what could be the reason of her ill-humour, but only for a moment, for presently Rosalind's eyes wandered to the bench under the trees, and in a flash the sunshine came back into her face.