While Lady Grant was speaking, the rich voice of Lettice close at hand was unmistakably heard. "He stimied me on the ninth." Jasmine looked up apprehensively on an impulse to warn Lettice of her mother's presence before she gave herself away any more; but at that moment Lettice saw them and exclaimed rather crossly: "Hullo, mother! Are _you_ here?" "Yes, dear, I have paid our long-promised visit. Did you have a good game?" Lettice made a gesture of indifference, and there was a short pause. "I suppose you'll be going home for lunch?" she enquired. "No, I've ordered lunch for Jasmine and myself here. But don't let that disturb you, dear. We shall amuse each other if you and Pamela are already engaged. We shall understand, shan't we, Jasmine?" "As a matter of fact," said Lettice, "we are lunching with Harry Vibart and Claude Whittaker. We've a foursome on afterwards." "Delightful," said her mother genially. "Don't you bother about us. I don't think I've looked at this week's _Country Life_ yet; have you finished with it?" she asked Jasmine, who, having for some time been listlessly turning over the pages had suddenly found _Country Life_ to be of such absorbing interest that she had buried her face in its faint oily smell. Lady Grant never really enjoyed looking at a paper unless she had taken it away from somebody else, and when her niece surrendered it she smiled at her. "My dear Jasmine, how pale you are!" she exclaimed, and bade her ring the bell for a glass of water. Jasmine, with a reproach for her treacherous Southern heart, tried to appear composed. "No, really please, Aunt May," she murmured. "But I insist, Jasmine. If you won't look after yourself, I must look after you. Ring the bell at once, there's a good girl, and you shall have a glass of water." Jasmine, to conceal her emotion, accepted the excuse that her aunt offered, and did as she had been told. "A glass of water for my niece, please, Frank," said Lady Grant to the waiter, and she managed to convey in the tone of her command that a glass of water for her niece would be different somehow from ordinary water. Perhaps it was, for when Frank brought it, all the people round looked up to watch Jasmine drinking it; and everyone who has drunk water in similar circumstances will know that it does then have a peculiar taste of its own, rather like that positive nothingness which is the flavour of permanganate of potash and peroxide of hydrogen. Soon after this Pamela came out on the verandah, and she, like her sister, had to be reassured of the sanctity of her lunch. "But at least," Jasmine thought, "he'll be able to see me, and perhaps when he sees me he'll ask to be introduced to Aunt May." At this moment Frank appeared again and asked Lady Grant in an awe-struck whisper if she had not ordered cold chicken. "Yes, Frank. Cold chicken for two." "The head steward asks me to say, my lady, that unfortunately there is no more cold chicken left."