Nouna, who found nothing very exhilarating in the assembled company after the departure of the boys, seized the very first opportunity to retire, and was up stairs before anybody else. When her husband followed a little later, he found the door of the room wide open, the candles flickering and guttering in the draught, but no Nouna. Her jewel-case was open on the dressing-table, and the contents were scattered about in reckless disorder, a bracelet lying on the floor, a diamond earring glistening on the top of a high-heeled boot, a couple of rings embedded in a hairbrush. George looked into the dressing-room, and then went back into the corridor, where he heard a long way off the rattling of the Fiji shells on his wife’s dress. He drew back into the room, and received her in his arms as she rushed through the door like a whirlwind. She gave a little cry when he caught her. “Where have you been?” he asked. “Where have I been? Oh, nowhere; only speaking to Lady Florencecourt’s maid.” “What about?” “Nothing. I wish you had let me bring Sundran; I can’t do my own hair.” “Why, it isn’t much longer than a boy’s. I might as well say I couldn’t do mine. I’ll be your maid to-night.” She made no objection, but quietly tilted up her chin as an intimation that he might unfasten her frock for her, with such an unusual air of reflective absorption that he stopped in the midst of his careful but clumsy ministrations to ask her what she was thinking about. “Nothing,” said she, as her glance fell on her scattered trinkets. “What have you been doing with your jewellery?” And he picked up some of the ill-used treasures and piled them up in the velvet tray. “Why, where’s the pearl necklace that you keep on the top?” He saw a slight but rapid change in her face which convinced him that he was, as the children say at hide and seek, “warm.” “Have you lost it? Is that the trouble?” he asked kindly. “There’s no trouble. I left it at home,” she answered with so much vivacity and mendacious promptitude that George saw it would be of no use to ask more questions.