"I don't think that matters. We could not walk in such rain. And even if we could, to make peace with Mr. Carden-Cox ought to come first." Did he care? Not, certainly, as she did. Fulvia saw this with a sharp pang, yet Nigel's manner was not cold or careless. He only spoke with quiet resolution, as of an unquestionable duty. "If uncle Arthur had but chosen some other day!" "He has not. I think you must not refuse." Fulvia yielded to his decision. At "a quarter to three precisely" a closed fly appeared, and she was ready. She looked wistfully at Nigel as he held open the front door, then stood under the porch putting up an umbrella. "It doesn't matter so much to you, of course," she murmured, "but I am disappointed! I shall feel cross with uncle all the afternoon." "No, you will not. It would make mischief. A good deal may depend upon you to-day." "Why? How?" "His will, if you must have it put in plain terms." "Oh, money! I hate money!" Nigel's expression was curious. He sheltered her across the pavement, and handed her into the fly, wearing that look still. Fulvia wondered what it meant. She said penitently, "I'll be good. It won't do to think only of myself!"—and was rewarded by a smile. Then Nigel stepped into the house, and as the fly was about to start, Daisy rushed out bareheaded into the rain. "Fulvie!" "Daisy, come back! You will be soaked," said Nigel. Daisy disregarded him. "Fulvie," she cried, "may I arrange your new jewel-case for you? It's such a beauty, and you have never begun to use it." Fulvia heard with preoccupied ears, hardly taking in the sense of Daisy's request. "If you like. Anything! I don't care." "And your keys?" "Keys?" "Your own bunch?" "Oh, I left them—somewhere. In my dressing-table drawer, I think." Nigel pulled Daisy into the shelter of the porch, and Fulvia was gone. Daisy danced from one foot to the other. "What fun!" she said, chuckling. "Fulvia looks as dismal as if she never would see you again. Just for one afternoon! Well, I don't mind now about the rain. I've something nice to do." Daisy had noted that morning the handsome silver-mounted dressing-box, Mr. Carden-Cox's birthday gift, standing on the side-table in Fulvia's room—not the little back room, but the pleasant front one, for Nigel had settled that point. Beside the new box was the shabby old dressing-case, and Daisy, having used curious fingers and eyes, discovered that the latter was locked, the former unlocked and empty. Thereupon she conceived the idea of emptying the old box into the now, as a pleasant rainy-day occupation. Daisy was not sensitive as to associations, or she might have shrunk, as Fulvia had shrunk, from bringing forward the gift connected with so sorrowful a day as Fulvia's twenty-first birthday.