Katherine turned slowly away from her aunt, gazing vaguely, absent-mindedly, as though she had not been thinking of the old lady’s words. “Oh, no, Aunt Betty. I don’t think so—What an old matchmaker you are!” “I love to see people happy. And I like him. I think it’s a pity he’s going on Monday. He’s been here a fortnight now. I like him. He’s polite to me, and when a young man is polite to an old woman like me that says a lot—hum, hum—yes, it does. But your mother doesn’t like him—I wonder why not—but she doesn’t. I always know when your mother doesn’t like anybody. Millie will.... I know she will. But I don’t think I’ll show her my things—not at first, not right after Paris.” “Perhaps it would be better to wait a little.” Katherine went and sat in front of her mirror. She touched the things on her dressing-table. “I’ll go now, dear—I can’t bear to think of you only having had that mince. My eye will be on you at dinner, mind.” She peeped out of the door, looked about her with her bright little eyes, then whisked away. Katherine sat before her glass, gazing. But not at herself. She did not know whose face it was that stared back at her. * * * * * Millie’s entrance that afternoon was very fine. There were there to receive her, her grandfather, her great-aunt (in white boa), her father, her mother, Henry, Katherine, Aunt Betty and Aggie, Philip Mark, Esq. She stood in the doorway of the drawing-room radiant with health, good spirits and happiness at being home again—all Trenchards always are. Like Katherine in the humour of her eyes, otherwise not at all—tall, dark, slim in black and white, a little black hat with a blue feather, a hat that was over one ear. She had her grandfather’s air of clear, finely cut distinction, but so alive, so vibrating with health was she that her entrance extinguished the family awaiting her as you blow out a candle. Her cheeks were flushed, her black eyes sparkled, her arms were outstretched to all of them. “Here I am!” she seemed to say, “I’m sure you’ve forgotten in all this time how delightful I am!—and indeed I’m ever so much more delightful than I was before I went away. In any case here I am, ready to love you all. And there’s no family in the world I’d be gladder to be a member of than this!” Her sharp, merry, inquisitive eyes sought them all out—sought out the old room with all the things in it exactly as she had always known them, and then the people—one after the other—all of them exactly as she had always known them.... She was introduced to Philip Mark. Her eyes lingered up him, for an instant, mischievously, almost interrogatively. To him she seemed to say: “What on earth are you doing inside here? How did you ever get in? And what are you here for?” She seemed to say to him: “You and I—we know more than these others here—but just because of that we’re not half so nice.”