She looked right at him as she passed, and he thought at first she hadn’t seen him at all. But when she went into her room she left the door open behind her and called his name, not loud, but urgently. “Come in,” she said, as he halted on the threshold, “and shut the door after you.” She had flung herself down on the bed. He stood awkwardly beside her, not knowing what he ought to do. She wasn’t crying. He thought she must be suddenly ill. “Hadn’t I better call mother?” he asked. “No,” she said. “Don’t call anybody. Don’t do anything. Just stay here a few minutes until I have had time to think. Sit down and give me something to hold on to. It’s rocking like a boat.” She clutched the hand he gave her with a strength that hurt, and the coldness of hers frightened him. But he obeyed her literally and didn’t try to talk, let alone ask questions. Presently her grip relaxed and her eyes steadied themselves. Evidently the rocking wasn’t quite so bad. She had a queer look in her face, though there was nothing you could call it but a smile. And then suddenly her eyes filled up with tears and she began to cry. She buried her face in a pillow in order to make no noise, and sobbed and shook. But this somehow didn’t distress him as much as the smile had done. The crying didn’t last very long, and when it was finished and she looked up at him again and said shakily, “I’m all right now,” he perceived that this was true. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’ve got to think and I can’t, yet. Punch, are you for me? Are you on my side whatever happens--whatever I do?” “Sure I am!” he told her. “Sure you are!” she said, and sitting up suddenly, she kissed him in the sort of brief, business-like way that was her fashion. Then she dropped back again on the pillow. “Why, this is what happened,” she went on, after a thoughtful silence. “You’re to go down now and tell them all about it. I slipped on a rug, down there in the hall, and turned my ankle, quite hard. And I’m up here now in my bathroom putting it in hot water so it won’t be swollen--for the wedding, you know. And I shan’t be able to play tennis this afternoon, or swim either, I suppose. But otherwise I’m quite all right. You don’t mind being a liar, do you, Punch, in a good cause?” He told her he didn’t. “Where did you disappear to when the crowd came?” she asked him suddenly. “You were there just the minute before.” “Oh, I was sort of keeping an eye on things,” he told her. “Grandmother’s room, you know. On account of the necklace.” She gave a rather sudden laugh at that, and told him he had that necklace on the brain. “Forget it!” she commanded him. “Go down and meet the Appleburys. But don’t forget about my ankle.”