“You can be ready to take me there at three o’clock,” he told his daughter, to whom belonged the privilege of pushing the heavy wheeled chair in which he took his exercise. “I wish you’d let me do that, sir,” said Captain Patch. “I really want a job this afternoon.” He nearly always found some good reason for relieving his hostess of this fatigue duty. That evening, she put on the only evening dress that she possessed, a black crêpe-de-chine one embroidered with silver crescents, and looked long and critically at her reflection in the glass. She powdered her small, straight, impertinent-looking nose, admired her really beautiful teeth, and wished, as she had often wished before, that her complexion had been anything but the creamy, freckled pallor of a _blonde cendrée_. Just before going downstairs, she allowed herself the comfort and pleasure of inspecting, with a hand mirror, the reflection of her back hair. As she went down, she was still smiling at the thought of that soft and fluffy twist of thick, pale gold hair. Nancy Fazackerly told me that she very often thought of her hair resolutely, when other people displayed new and charming clothes, such as she herself had never possessed. Sallie Ambrey’s frock that night was one that Mrs. Fazackerly had not seen before, a straight, slim, green-and-gold little frock, with no sleeves at all. “It’s lovely,” said Nancy frankly. “Christopher is so old-fashioned that he’s been objecting to it as indecent,” said the girl with perfect unconcern. “So it is,” Christopher asserted. “Surely decency and indecency are out of date, nowadays,” Martyn suggested. “Like talking of people being shocked. I believe it was quite usual to be shocked, some years ago, but one never hears of its happening now.” “Nancy,” said Sallie, “will your Mrs. Harter be shocked? She looked rather as though she might be, at the concert.” “No, she won’t,” Mrs. Fazackerly asserted positively. “And she’s not my Mrs. Harter. I know very little of her, except that she hasn’t many friends.” “Is she amusing?” It might have been truthfully asserted that no one, on that first evening, found Mrs. Harter exactly amusing. It was, indeed, very difficult to make her utter a word, from what I was told. She sat on the edge of an armchair, wearing the same black dress that she had worn at the concert, and twisting her wedding ring round and round on her finger. Her dark face wore a look of resentful shyness, her voice was low and abrupt, and all her replies were monosyllables. She did not originate any remark at all. Her evident sense of constraint began to affect everybody in the room. Sallie, who believes in letting people alone, leaned back on the sofa and smoked a cigarette and said very little. Martyn looked at Mrs. Harter, his young expressive face more and more sharply critical. Then Christopher Ambrey and Captain Patch broke the silence simultaneously. “Did you see the--” “Have you been to--” “I beg your pardon.”