"Yes." Esmé's voice grew strained. If Fate had sent her Arthur Ellis and his coal mines! How she would have loved to act hostess in the big town house, in Ellis Court, and Dungredy Lodge; she put the thought away, almost angrily, for she loved Bertie. Yet, clinging to him, his arms about her, his lips on hers, she missed something. Was she growing older that kisses failed to thrill? "I am so tired, Bertie," she said suddenly. "I have not been well all day." Fear and discontent swept love aside. In a moment she was querulous, irritable, all the evening's happiness gone again. It was time to dress. People were coming to dine; there would be new salad; iced rice cunningly flavoured. But the thought of food made Esmé wretched. "I _want_ to be happy. Why cannot the Fates let me be?" she almost whimpered to her glass. Brilliantly pretty, slim, young, she wanted to lose nothing. "If I were happy again I would not fret for all the impossible things as I did to-day," she said aloud, with the idea--too common with humanity--that one may strike a bargain with Fate. CHAPTER IV Once a mere cottage, now a long ornate bungalow jutting into angles, full of unexpected rooms, the Bellews' river-side house is more luxurious than many big structures of brick and mortar. "We run down to picnic here," but Belle Bellew knew that picnicking without everything out of season, and a _chef_ of quality, could not appeal to the people she gathered about her. The picnic element was kept up by breakfast-tables laid under trees, things deserted and unused--man likes his breakfast free from fly and midge. The ideal, talked of in the gleam of electric light, is fresh air, the plash of old Father Thames, morning sunshine; the real is that we prefer tempered light, copper heaters, and a roof. The long low house jutted out in two wings, all the windows opening onto a covered veranda. Dull people turned their heads aside when they rowed past on Sunday evenings, for the flash of lights, the sound of raised voices, could be seen and heard from the river. The chairs were wicker, but the rugs on the stained floors Persian. It was wealth, less ostentatious than the Holbrooks'; light, frothy, merry, careless wealth, with pleasure for its high priest. Jimmie Gore Helmsley motored Denise and Sybil down; the place seemed empty when they came, but looking closer one could see groups here and there, see flutter of light dresses; hear tinkle of light laughter, bass of man's deeper note. A thin, svelte woman, green-eyed, ferret-faced, came out of the open door. Mousie Cavendish said she found her ugliness more powerful than other women's beauty. A bitter-tongued little creature, stirring every surface maliciously to point out something foul below it. But clever, moderately rich, perfectly gowned; gaining what income she lacked through her too keen power of observation.