Rachel as she sat before her dressing-table could see in that mirror the dark reflection of the twilit garden. "It's a lovely place, Lucy----" "Yes, Miss Rachel." "Are you glad to get away from London?" "It has been hot there these last weeks." Rachel met in the glass the girl's black eyes. They were searching Rachel's face. "Lucy, would you rather live in London or in the country?" "I don't mind, Miss Rachel." Then after a little pause: "I hope I've give satisfaction these last weeks?" "Why, yes, of course." "Then I hope, miss, that you'll allow me to stay with you whether--in London or the country." The colour mounted to Rachel's cheeks. "I hope there'll be no need for any change," she said. She found when she came down to the drawing-room that Monty Carfax had arrived. Monty Carfax was the chief of the young men who were, just at that time, entertaining London dinner-tables. About half a dozen of God's creatures, under thirty and perfectly dressed, with faces like tombstones and the laugh of the peacock, went from house to house in London and mocked at the world. They belonged, as the mediaeval jesters belonged, each to his own court, and Monty Carfax, certainly the cleverest of them, was attached to the Beaminster Court and served the Duchess by faith, if not by sight. Rachel hated him and always, when she found herself next to him, wrapped herself in her old farouche manner and behaved like an awkward schoolgirl. She was terribly disappointed at discovering that he was going to take her into dinner to-night; he knew that she disliked him and felt it a compliment that a raw creature fresh from the schoolroom should fail to appreciate him; on this occasion he devoted himself to the elderly Massiter cousin on his other side--throughout dinner they happily undressed the world and found it sawdust. Rachel meanwhile found Maurice Garden her other companion. He genially enjoyed his dinner and talked in a loud voice and prepared the answers that he always gave to ladies who asked him when he wrote, whether he thought of his plots or his characters first, and "she did hope he wouldn't mind her saying that of all his books the one----" He frankly liked these questions and was taken by surprise when Rachel said: "I've never read any of your novels, Mr. Garden, so I won't pretend----" He asked her what she did read. "Have you ever read anything by an author called Peter Westcott?" "Westcott? Westcott?... Let me see ... Westcott?... Well now--One of the young men, isn't he?" "Yes. He wrote a book called _Reuben Hallard_." "Ah yes. I remember about _Reuben Hallard_--had quite a little success as a first book. He's one of your high-brow young men, all for Art and the rest of it. We all begin like that, Miss Beaminster. I was like that myself once----" She looked at him coolly. "Why did you give it up?"