But he was nervous too, and jumped down my throat: "Don't ask me questions! I never passed an examination in my life," he pulled out his watch. "And I've got an engagement to keep in exactly three minutes' time." No wonder I stared. One man comes when dinner is half done, and one wants to go before the hostess had risen. For my part I wanted him _not_ to go ... I told him so. "Why?" he turned suddenly and faced me. I said it was perhaps because I felt I knew him best. "Anyway," I persisted, "don't go!" He hesitated. "_Please_ don't go," I said. I was relieved when he said, very well, he would "see it out." For I knew, had he gone, my aunt would think I had driven him away. There was a rustle, and I saw Aunt Josephine rising. My man left me instantly. He went and opened the door. As we filed out he turned towards my aunt. I heard him whisper, "_Je vous fais mes compliments, madame_." He looked at Betty. Aunt Josephine nodded. "But...." her face changed. What was wrong? For whom was that "but"? I turned quickly and caught the yellow eyes leaving my back. I was "but." But why? What had I done? The Colonel talked to Betty and The Tartar, as he led the way back to the drawing-room. The other man still was behind with my aunt. He seemed to be reassuring her. His curious low voice kept going off the register. At a break I heard the words: "Doucement" enunciated with an emphasis that carried. I kept thinking how all the softly-draped windows had iron bars behind the silk. In the drawing-room, my aunt was saying to The Tartar, "Oh, yes, Bettina sings and dances." "She sings," I said. "Don't you skirt-dance?" The Tartar asked. Bettina looked sorry. "I can dance ordinary dances," she said. "But what sort is a skirt-dance?" The men made a semicircle round her to explain. Betty said she hadn't done any skirt-dances since she was a little girl. "Oh, and what are you now?" the Colonel said, grinning horribly. They made Bettina tell about the action-songs our mother had taught us in the nursery. They asked her to do one. Of course Bettina refused. "They're only for children," she said with that little air borrowed from our mother. The Tartar threw back his bullet head and roared. The Colonel said they were sick, in London, of sophisticated dancing. What they wanted was Bettina's sort. Bettina shook her head. The Grey Hawk said it was too soon after dinner. But they went across the room towards the piano. I was following, when the man who had taken me in to dinner said: "This is a comfortable chair." So I sat down. He said something about the strangeness of London "just at first." It would pass away. I told him I hoped Bettina would find it so. As for me, I was only staying till to-morrow. He looked so surprised that I explained I had to go back and take care of my mother. "You have never been to London since you were a child--and you come all this way just for a few hours?"