It had been arranged that they two should go to Omeath and stay at the Parsonage for three months, leaving Paddy at the doctor’s, and later on Paddy was to join them for her summer holiday, and Mrs Adair and Eileen to come back. This arrangement had been made owing to Eileen’s ill-health and the doctor’s advice that they should not remain in London all the summer, and as there was barely room for three visitors together at the Parsonage, they decided to go in detachments. In the end Paddy gave in and accepted the invitation, and at half-past three on the appointed day presented herself at the Blakes’ house in Cadogan Place. A butler ushered her in, in a lordly fashion, which Paddy afterward mimicked much to Eileen’s and her mother’s amusement, and she presently found herself alone in an enormous drawing-room, which seemed to her just a conglomeration of fantastic chairs and looking-glasses. A few seconds later there was a swish-swish outside and Doreen appeared. For one second the girls looked at each other with the unspoken question, “Are you changed?” and then with little exclamations of delight they literally flew at each other. “Paddy, this is just lovely!” exclaimed Doreen when they had finished embracing. “I’ve been longing to see you for months.” “Silk linings!” said Paddy, walking round Doreen quizzically. “We are grand nowadays! If there’s one thing I want more than another, it’s to go swish-swish as I walk.” “Nonsense!” said Doreen. “I know better. You don’t care a fig about it, and neither do I for the matter of that. It’s as much Lawrence’s fad as anyone’s. When Kathleen and I go out with him he likes us to be lined with silk,” and she laughed merrily, adding, “But what a swell you are, Paddy, and how pretty you have grown!” “It’s only my hair,” answered Paddy. “I spend ten minutes on it now instead of two. It’s awfully jolly to find you just the same, Doreen. What a heap we’ve got to tell each other. Are we going to say in this ‘throne-room’ or what?” “Don’t you like it? We can sit on the rug by the fire, and no one will come. I told James to say ‘not at home.’” “Is James the overpowering individual who condescended to show me upstairs? I nearly said ‘Thank you, sir!’ by mistake.” Doreen pulled up two big cosy chairs, and they were soon talking nineteen to the dozen, or rather Paddy twenty to Doreen’s ten, with such vigour, that neither of than heard the door open and a light footstep enter. At the sound of a bracelet jingling, however, they looked round in surprise, to find Gwendoline, resplendent in a lovely new spring costume, standing watching them with laughter in her glorious eyes. “I knew you would be ‘not at home,’ Doreen,” she said, “so I just made Lawrence lend me his latchkey. Don’t be vexed. I’m sick of private views, and spring shows and things, and I just wanted awfully to come and see you and Miss Adair.” Doreen sprang up and made room for her eagerly, not noticing Paddy’s sudden stiffness.