society, did not appear. At all events, when the ladies left the room at dessert, Nouna was so much overcome by the dire prospect before her that she slipped round to her husband, and hissed into his ear, in a doleful and not altogether inaudible whisper: “Don’t be long, or you won’t find me alive!” She had not under-estimated the relaxation of the drawing-room. Throughout the length of the suite of cold-looking apartments wax-lights flickered weakly in numbers wholly inadequate to the size of the rooms. The piano had been opened, and Lady Florencecourt invited the younger ladies to play; as Miss Birch hesitated, with not unnatural diffidence before such an audience, Nouna rushed recklessly into the breach, regardless of the fact that she was a totally incompetent performer. “I knew she’d go back to her knitting, and that’s in the furthest room,” she volunteered in explanation, as the elder ladies sailed away. But the astounding badness of her performance soon brought Lady Florencecourt back, not indeed so much to criticise as to find out whether the curious sounds the instrument was giving forth were not the result of an excursion of her Blenheim spaniel along the keys. “Is that Indian music, Mrs. Lauriston? Something that is usually played to an accompaniment of tom-toms?” asked Lady Florencecourt, holding up her glasses, not, however, before she had ascertained that she was listening to a mangled version of “Auld Robin Gray.” “Yes, it’s an ‘Invocation to a Witch,’” answered Nouna imperturbably. “It ends like this, all the tom-toms together,” and she put her arms down upon the piano with a crash. Her face was perfectly grave, but she began to feel the promptings of a wicked imp within her, urging her to rebel against this most unwarrantable discipline to which she was being subjected. Mrs. Bohun had followed her hostess, and as Nouna rose abruptly from the piano, the old lady said gently: “You mustn’t be offended by my saying so, but it seems impossible to realise that you are a married woman. You must have been married while you were still in short frocks!” Nouna, who wore an elaborate dinner-dress of emerald-green velvet, with loose folds of Nile green silk falling straight from her neck to her feet, was for a moment rather crestfallen to find how little dignity a train could give. “Ye-es,” she said reluctantly. “But I wear long ones now. And I’m sixteen.” Mrs. Bohun smiled. “That is very young for the responsibilities of a wife.” “I haven’t any responsibilities,” answered Nouna quickly. “My mother gives me an allowance--or at least the lawyers do; at any rate, I have one.” “But isn’t that a responsibility?” asked the old lady, much amused. “Oh, no. I just spend it, and then mamma has the responsibility of sending me some more.” Neither Mrs. Bohun nor Miss Birch could keep her countenance at this _naïve_ disclosure, but its effect upon Lady Florencecourt was to make her grow grimmer than ever.