"Harry?" She looked at him in surprise. "Why, Romer, what a harpist you are. If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, he never marries! Harry has a great many bad habits, goodness knows. But marrying isn't one of them." "Do you think he's keen on some one else?" asked Romer after a rather long pause. She seemed annoyed at the question, then smiled again. "I don't know! The other day I called at the studio unexpectedly to ask for something I'd forgotten, and found Harry improvising at the piano--you know that way he has of improvising from memory--an inaccurate memory--of some well-known composer. I've never known him do it except when he wanted to--please some woman. Well, Lady Walmer was there, leaning over the piano and listening. Should you think from that he's keen, as you call it, on her?" "Lady Walmer! At her age!" "Why, Romer, she's no older than anybody else! It doesn't matter nowadays in the very slightest degree whether one is twenty-eight, or thirty-eight, or even forty-eight. To a modern man it's all exactly the same. Of course, if a flapper is what is required, well then, naturally, he must be shown to another department. But apart from that--why, Lady Walmer would be quite as dangerous a rival for me as a woman ten years or twenty years younger. And I'm not twenty-five yet." "Rival to _you_? What do you mean?" Romer stared at her, a spark of his fanatic admiration showing in his eyes. She laughed and hurried on. "Nothing. I never mean anything. I know what you think, Harry is not a marrying man, but he might become one. But a girl like Alec Walmer! With the figure of a suffragette and the mind of a canary who plays cricket, or a goose who goes in for golf----" "Heaps of cash." "Yes, I know. But Harry's an artist--he needs sympathy." "He's got his head screwed on the right way." "But his heart's in the right place." "What is the right place?" "Don't be irritating, Romer. We'll go to the Green Gate on Monday then. And now I must go out and order a short tweed skirt, and a garden roller, and a few other things that we shall need in the country. Leave it all to me! No, I never forget anything; even your mother says I'm practical. And oh, do let's try and put her in a good temper before we go away. You'd better go and see her and say good-bye to-day, early in the afternoon, alone. And then I'll go in late and take away the impression of anything you've said wrong. Do you see, darling? Dear Romer!" She went out of the room like a sunbeam in a hurry. Romer followed her with a wondering expression. To him her movements, her hair, her eyes seemed to suggest some fascinating language he had not yet learnt. She seemed to him almost a magic creature. As usual, he showed his sensations simply by obeying. He went to say good-bye to his mother. CHAPTER XIII VALENTIA'S VISIT