The conversation had ranged round the subject of the hour, namely, the possibility--as yet in the estimation of most persons an incredible one--of war with the Boer Republics, when the young man indulged in a playful aside addressed to Miss Hart, at whose right hand he was seated. "If I could find fault with anything belonging to the lady at the head of the table," he said, "it would be the gloomy old party looking in at these back windows." "What, the dear old cedar tree! Never, Mr. Farge!" protested Eliza. "Yes, it would, though," he insisted, "when, as tonight, it is drip, drip, dripping all over the shop. No touch of Sunny Jim about him, is these now, Bert?"--this to the devoted Worthington sitting immediately opposite to him on Miss Hart's left. "Truly there is not, if I may venture so far," the other young gentleman responded, playing up obediently. "And if anything could give me and Charlie a fit of the blues, I believe that old fellow would in rainy weather." "Makes you think of the cemetery, does it not now, Bert?" "You have hit it. Paddington--not the station though, Charlie, just starting for a cosey little trip with your best girl up the river." "For shame, Mr. Worthington," Eliza protested again, giggling. "Suggestive of the end of all week-ends, in short," de Courcy Smyth, who contrary to his custom was present at dinner that evening, put in snarlingly. "One last trip up the River of Death for you, with a ticket marked not transferrable, eh, Farge? Then an oblong hole in the reeking blue clay, silence and worms." His tone was spiteful to the point of commanding attention. A hush fell on the company, broken only by the drifting sob of the rain through the branches of the great cedar. Mr. Farge went perceptibly pale. Mrs. Porcher sighed and turned her fine eyes up to the ceiling. Iglesias looked curiously at the speaker. Eliza Hart was the first to find voice. "Pray, Mr. Smyth," she said, "don't be so very unpleasant. You're enough to give one the goose-skin all over." "I am sorry I have offended," he answered sullenly. "But I beg leave to call attention to the fact that I did not start this subject. I was rather interested in the previous discussion, which gave an opportunity of intelligent conversation not habitual among us. Farge is responsible for the interruption, and for the cemeteries, and consequently for my comment. Still, I am sorry I have offended." He shifted his position, glancing uneasily first at his hostess, and then at Dominic Iglesias, who sat opposite him in the place of honour at that lady's right hand. "You have not offended, Mr. Smyth," Mrs. Porcher declared graciously. "And no doubt it is well for us all to be reminded of death and burial at times. Though some of us hardly need reminding"--again she sighed. "We carry the thought of them about with us always." And she turned her fine eyes languidly upon Mr. Iglesias. "My poor sweet Peachie," the kind-hearted Eliza murmured, under her breath.