Constance did not interrupt her performance on the entrance of the gentlemen, and Major Mitton went to stand beside the pianoforte, gallantly turning over the music leaves at the wrong moment, with the best intentions. Canon Hadlow sat down near Miss Piper; the host with Dr. Hatch crossed the room to speak to Mrs. Hadlow, and Mr. Bragg and Theodore approached the table, at which Miss Patty and May Cheffington were seated. Mr. Bragg drew up a chair close to Miss Patty at once, and began to talk with her in a low voice, and with more appearance of animation than his manner usually displayed. Theodore, as he observed this, remembered with satisfaction that his friend Captain Cheffington had formerly pronounced old Bragg to be a d----d snob. A man must indeed be on a low level who could prefer Miss Patty Piper's culinary conversation to a luminous exposition of the currency question as set forth by Mr. Theodore Bransby. He bent over May, who was still turning the leaves of the photograph book, and said, "I'm afraid you are not having a very amusing evening, Miss Cheffington." "Oh yes, thank you," returned May, making the queerest little grimace in her effort not to yawn. "I am very fond of looking at photographs." "I don't suppose there are many portraits there that you would recognize. A little out of your set," said Theodore. "In fact, I don't know many of them myself, I have been so much away. By the way, have you any commands for your people in town? I go up the day after to-morrow." "Shall you see Aunt Pauline?" "Certainly. I suppose Lord Castlecombe is not likely to be in town at this season?" went on Theodore, raising his tone a little so as to be heard by the others. Constance's playing had now come to an end, and there was a general lowering of voices, occasioned by the cessation of that pianoforte accompaniment. "I don't know, I'm sure. I don't know where he lives," answered May innocently. "Ahem! He is at this season, in all probability, at Combe Park, his place in Gloucestershire." May had never heard of her great-uncle's place in Gloucestershire; but now, when Theodore said the words, her thought flashed through a chain of associations to Mrs. Dobbs's mention of the Castlecombe Arms on the Gloucester Road, kept by "Old Rabbitt," and she blushed as though she had done something to be ashamed of. "The last time I had the pleasure of seeing your father, he was talking to me about Combe Park," continued Theodore, with a complacent sense of superiority to the rest of the company in these manifestations of familiar intercourse with members of the Castlecombe family. Lord Castlecombe was a very important personage in those parts. As May did not speak, Theodore went on: "Grand old place, Combe Park, isn't it?"