“Well, if you must go there, somehow I wish you’d let me go with you! I know it’s a funny request, and I don’t quite know why I don’t want you to go there without me—but I don’t!” I felt very young and awkward with that speech. But there was so little that I could tell her to warn her. And I did _not_ trust either Mrs. Fawcette or her friends. I had seen something of them, and they were a queer crowd, to say the least. Natalie looked up at me curiously. “You are in a funny mood to-day,” she said. “But if you want to come along, I should think Mrs. Fawcette would be delighted to take you!” It was unlike her, but I seemed to feel something of a challenge in her last remark. Before I could answer, however, she had turned to that lady, who was sitting near by. “Mrs. Fawcette,” she called gayly, “Mr. Clayton is dying to come to the tea with us this afternoon. Do you suppose you could manage to take him?” Then I saw a queer thing happen. Mrs. Fawcette turned as though she had been stung and glanced first at me and then at Natalie, with a scarcely veiled intensity that left us startled in our turn. She did not answer for a moment, and Natalie was driven into further speech. “I’ve been telling him about that wonderful tea we had there before, and he wants to come along and sample it. But of course if you’d rather not——” She glanced from Mrs. Fawcette to me in obvious embarrassment. I thought Mrs. Fawcette had grown rather pale, but she answered now and readily enough: “You bad girl! I told you not to talk about that tea, or our host will be swamped with people coming to sample it and demanding where he got it. But if Mr. Clayton wants to come with us, I shall be delighted to include him in the party.” She avoided my eyes as she spoke. “He can see you home afterwards,” she added. There was an almost venomous light in her eyes as she spoke. But if Natalie saw it she appeared serenely unconscious of the fact. “Thank you,” she answered, “and I’m awfully sorry if I should not have talked to him about it.” Naturally I did not feel very comfortable about my position in the party, but I was determined to go, and so made no demur to my somewhat left-handed invitation. And later, when we found ourselves in Mrs. Fawcette’s car on the way to her friend’s house, she seemed to wish to make amends by being very cordial to us both. But I did not much relish the look in her eye when it fell on Natalie all the same. Our host was a Russian, an aristocrat and a card from the fallen house of cards that had been Russia, carried by the wind of that fall into a new country and a new circle.