"Mother," Mary said when Sophia had gone, "I wanted to catch you just a minute--I've seen Mr Gallup since that night he came to tell us about Buz . . ." "You've met?" Mrs Ffolliot exclaimed, "where? and why have you never told me?" "It was while you were away. Miss Gallup had been ill and I went to ask for her and he was there, and he walked home with me . . ." Mrs Ffolliot raised her eyebrows. "Oh, you think it funny too? It couldn't be helped--old Miss Gallup seemed to think it was the proper thing and sent him--and father was waiting for me at the gate and was awfully cross. . . . Mother, how _did_ you persuade him to let you ask Mr Gallup?" Mrs Ffolliot turned to her dressing-table and began to collect fan and handkerchief. She looked in the glass and saw Mary behind her, eager, radiant, slim, upright, and gloriously young. She began to see why father was so awfully cross. There was more excuse than usual. "Why don't you answer me, mother? didn't you hear what I said?" "I heard, my darling. Father needed no persuasion. He simply changed his mind; but I can't think why you never told me you had met Mr Gallup already." Mary blushed. The warm colour dyed forehead and neck and ears, and faded into the exceedingly white chest and shoulders, revealed to the world for the first time. Mrs Ffolliot saw all this in the glass, wondered if she could have imagined it, and turned to face her daughter. "Mother"--what honest eyes the child had, to be sure--"it wasn't the first time I'd spoken to him." "Really, Mary, you are very mysterious----" "I met him in the woods once before Christmas, and he was lost, and I showed him the way out, and father saw us . . . and was just as cross." Mrs Ffolliot felt more in sympathy with her husband than usual. But all she said was, "Well, well, it's evident you don't need an introduction. I forgot you'd seen him when he called. I'm glad you told me in time to prevent it, or he would have thought it so odd--come, my child, we must go down." "_You_ aren't cross, are you, mother?" Mary asked wistfully. "Cross!" Mrs Ffolliot repeated, "at your first party. What is there to be cross about? Yes, my child, that dress is quite charming--father was right, you can stand that dead white--but it's trying to some people--come." The Campions called for Eloquent, and he found himself seated side by side with Sir George on one of the little seats, while Lady Campion and a pretty niece called Miss Bax sat opposite. Miss Bax was disposed to be friendly and conversational, but to Eloquent the fact that he was going to Redmarley was no ordinary occurrence, and he would infinitely have preferred to have driven out alone, or, better still, to have walked through the soft spring night from his aunt's house to the Manor, which still held something of the glamour that had surrounded it in his childhood.