“He’ll leave his card—some day when he knows you’re out,” their guest observed. “It is one of his affectations. He’s a bit of a jackanapes, if you ask me.” No one had, or had thought of doing so. “And he usually does. It has gone to his chink head the way he’s run after in Washington, D. C.” Sir Charles Snow crumbled his bread viciously, but he took no other notice, for Reginald de Courcy Seymour Hamilton _was_ their guest—though what possessed Emma to tolerate the fellow, let alone invite him, was more than he could understand. Lady Snow had her reasons. They were not ungenerous ones—and they were distinctly feminine. “By the way, Ivy,” she said, “you met Mr. Sên at Miss Townsend’s, he told me.” “How did you like him, Miss Gilbert?” Hamilton spoke before the girl could answer her cousin. “Miss Townsend likes him immensely,” Ivy replied. “I have only met him twice—very casually.” “Cracked, isn’t she?” Hamilton said pleasantly. “Haven’t met her, though, myself.” “And are never likely to,” Sir Charles and his cousin said promptly—to themselves. “But, by George, he sent you flowers though, didn’t he? I heard so. I’d forgotten that. Perhaps he will call when you are at home after all, Lady Snow. I’d live in hopes,” Hamilton said in a tone that made Sir Charles Snow’s right foot tingle. But Emma Snow had little attention to waste on any one but Ivy now. “Sent you flowers, Ivy?” she cried excitedly. “You never told me. When?” “I don’t put _every_ nothing in my diary,” Ivy said indifferently, not troubling to lift her eyes from her plate. “But did he?” Emma Snow insisted. Her cousin smiled coldly. She was furious at Reginald Hamilton; she didn’t know why. “Did Mr. Sên send you flowers, Ivy?” Sir Charles asked. The girl looked up then, looked at him in surprise. The question was unlike Charles Snow. She had ignored Emma—had been on the point of saying, “Why not get any details you’d like from Mr. Hamilton? He seems particularly well informed.” But she would not put her cousin Charles off, or answer him flippantly—she liked him far too well. “Yes,” she told Sir Charles, quietly. “Mr. Sên sent me a handful of violets one day. They were beautiful violets.” “I wish I’d known that!” was Snow’s astonishing comment. “Whyever why?” his wife cried. “Have you, as well as Japan, designs on Shantung, Charlie?” Ivy demanded, with a laugh into his eyes. “Heaven help us!” the knight retorted. “Who’d have thought you’d ever heard of Shantung. I wouldn’t for one. That _is_ a development! Are you thinking of standing for Parliament, Ivy, when we go home? Or of investing in a Cook’s ticket to the grave of Confucius?”