"I should really like to call you `Claire,' but I must wait to be asked! I have been meaning to write ever since we returned from Saint Moritz; but you know how it is in town, such a continual rush, that one can never get through half the things that ought to be done! We should all like to see you again. Mother has another `At Home' on Thursday evening next, and would be glad to see you then, if you cared to come; but what _I_ should like is to have you to myself! On Saturday next I could call for you, as I did at Christmas, and keep you for the whole day. Then we could talk as we couldn't do at the `At Homes,' which are really rather dull, duty occasions. "Let me know which of these propositions suits you best. Looking forward to seeing you,-- "Your friend, (if you will have me!) "Janet Willoughby." Claire had opened the letter, aglow with expectation; she laid it down feeling dazed and blank. For the moment only one fact stood out to the exclusion of every other, and that was that Janet did not wish her to be present at the "At Home." Mrs Willoughby had sent the invitation, but Janet had supplemented it by another, which could not be refused. "I would rather have you to myself." How was it possible to refuse an invitation couched in such terms? How could one answer with any show of civility, "I should prefer to come with the crowd?" Claire carried the letter up to her cold bedroom, and sat down to do a little honest thinking. "It's very difficult to understand what one really wants! We deceive ourselves as much as we do other people... Why am I so hideously depressed? I liked going to the `At Home,' I liked dressing up, and driving through the streets, and seeing the flowers and the dresses, and having the good supper; but, if that were all, I believe I'd prefer the whole day with Janet. I suppose, really, it's Captain Fanshawe that's at the bottom of it. I want to meet him, I thought I should meet him, and now it's over. I shan't be asked again when there's a chance of his coming. Janet doesn't want me. She's not jealous, of course--that's absurd--but she wants to keep him to herself, and she imagines somehow that I should interfere--" Imagination pictured Janet staring with puzzled, uneasy eyes across the tables in the dining-room, of Janet drearily examining the piled-up presents in the boudoir, and then, like a flash of light, showed the picture of another face, now eager, animated, admiring, again grave and wistful. "Is your address still the Grand Hotel?--_My_ address is still the Carlton Club."