As Mr. Mayne's wrath soon evaporated, and Dick was a sweet-tempered fellow and bore no malice, this slight altercation produced no lasting effect, except that Dick, for the next few days, hurried home to his dinner, talked a good deal about Switzerland, and never mentioned a Challoner in his father's hearing. "We must keep him in a good temper for the 25th," he said to his mother, with a touch of the Mayne shrewdness. That day was rapidly approaching, and all sorts of festive preparations were going on at Longmead. Dick himself gravely superintended the rolling of the tennis-ground in the large meadow, and daubed himself plentifully with lime in marking out the courts, while Mr. Mayne stood with his hands in the pockets of his shooting-coat watching him. The two were a great deal together just then: Dick rather stuck to his father during one or two mornings; the wily young fellow knew that Nan was closeted with his mother, helping her with all sorts of feminine arrangements, and he was determined to keep them apart. Nan wondered a great deal why Dick did not come to interrupt or tease them as usual, and grew a little absent over Mrs. Mayne's rambling explanations. When the gong sounded, no one asked her to stay to luncheon. Mrs. Mayne saw her put on her hat without uttering a single protest. "It is so good of you to help me, dear," she said, taking the girl into her embrace. "You are quite sure people won't expect a sit-down supper?" "Oh no; the buffet system is best," returned Nan, decidedly. "Half the people will not stay, and you need not make a fuss about the rest. It is an afternoon party, you must remember that; only people who are very intimate will remain for the fun of the thing. Tell Nicholson to have plenty of ices going; people care most for that sort of refreshment." "Yes, dear; I will be sure to remember," returned her friend, meekly. She was very grateful to Nan for these hints, and was quite willing to follow her guidance in all such matters; but when Nan proposed once sending for Dick to ask his opinion on some knotty point that baffled their women's wits, Mrs. Mayne demurred. "It is a pity to disturb him; he is with his father; and we can settle these things by ourselves," she replied, not venturing to mar the present tranquillity by sending such a message to Dick. Mr. Mayne would have accompanied his son, and the consultation would hardly have ended peaceably. "Men have their hobbies. We had better settle all this together, you and I," she said hurriedly. Nan merely nodded, and cut the Gordian knot through somewhat ruthlessly; but on that occasion she put on her hat before the gong sounded. "You must be very busy, for one never has a glimpse of you in the morning," she could not help saying to Dick, as he came in that afternoon to escort them to Fitzroy Lodge. "Well, yes, I am tolerably busy," he drawled. "I am never free to do things in the afternoons,"--a fact that Nan felt was unanswerable.