“Kate! I didn’t know you were here! How did you come?” Her hostess’s mild countenance betrayed the same embarrassment as Lilla’s, and under it Mrs. Clephane detected the same aggrieved surprise. Having at last settled her own daughter’s difficulties, Mrs. Drover’s eyes seemed to ask, why should she so soon be called upon to deal with another family disturbance? Even juries, after a protracted trial, are excused from service for seven years; yet here she was being drawn into the thick of a new quarrel when the old one was barely composed. “Anne’s out,” she added, offering a cool pink cheek to her sister-in-law. “May I wait, then? I came to see her,” Kate said timidly. “Of course, my dear! You must stay to lunch.” Mrs. Drover’s naturally ceremonious manner became stiff with apprehension. “You look tired, you know; this continuous travelling must be very exhausting. And the food!... Yes; Anne ought to be back for lunch. She and Nollie went off to the Glenvers’ to see the tennis finals; didn’t they, Lilla? Of course I can’t _promise_ they’ll be back ... but you must stay....” She rang and gave orders that another seat should be put at table. “We’re rather a large party; you won’t mind? The men are off at a polo practice at Hempstead. Dawson, how many shall we be for lunch?” she asked the butler. Under her breath she added: “Yes; champagne.” If we ever need it, she concluded in a parenthetic glance, it will be today! The hall was already filling up with a jocund bustle of Drovers and Tresseltons. Young, middle-aged and elderly, they poured out of successive motors, all ruddy, prosperous, clamouring for food. Hardly distinguishable from the family were the week-end friends returning with them from one sportive spectacle or another. As Kate Clephane stood among them, going through the mechanical gestures of greeting and small-talk, she felt so tenuous and spectral that she almost wondered how she could be visible to their hearty senses. They were all glad to see her, all a little surprised at her being there, and all soon forgetful of their own surprise in discussing the more important questions of polo, tennis and lunch. Once more she had the impression of being hurried with them down a huge sliding stairway that perpetually revolved upon itself, and once more she recalled her difficulty in telling one of them from another, and in deciding whether it was the Tresseltons or the Drovers who had the smallest noses. “But Anne--where’s Anne?” Hendrik Drover enquired, steering the tide of arrivals toward the shining stretch of a long luncheon-table. He put Mrs. Clephane at his left, and added, as he settled her in her seat: “Anne and Nollie went off early to the Glenver finals. But Joe was there too--weren’t you, Joe?”