What was she going to do to-day? Oh! anything and everything; boat, play tennis, idle, watch the people. The silver sweetness of the morning called to Sybil. She would have breakfast out, under the trees. She saw tables ready there. Cool damp of dew, a gentle cloud of midges and flies did not deter Sybil. Cold tea and a narrow choice of breakfast, brought by a languid footman, were enough for her. Gore Helmsley, with the morning peevishness which comes when we are forty, brushed mosquitoes from his hair, stabbed irritably at congealing bacon and leathery egg, listened with tempered enthusiasm to Sybil's picture of ideal life. Out in the woods somewhere, breakfast and lunch and dinner with the lovely trees overhead, and the lovely grass at one's feet, and no stuffy rooms and cold roast beef, but eggs and fish and tea, she chattered. Captain Gore Helmsley said, "With pneumonia sauce," and said it irritably. He sat watching the girl's fresh face, the sparkle of her grey eyes, and presently deemed her worth even outdoor breakfast. As cigarettes banished midges his voice grew soft again; he knew how to listen, how to make youth talk of itself. He planned the day out; he bought a box of sweets for Sybil to crunch. The girl was excited, pleased by her conquest. She had seen Jimmie in attendance on well-known beauties; had never dreamt the black eyes would look at her with open admiration; or that the man would talk of lunches together, of a drive somewhere in his car, of singling her out. She thanked him warmly, with flushed cheeks which made her lovely. "Take her to Brighton some day, down to the sea, for a picnic! Oh, how lovely, and how good of him; he had so much to do, so many friends." Lord Innistenne, strolling across the gardens, saw the two under the big beech tree--saw Esmé reading alone on the veranda. He walked down to the river, where two long chairs were hidden in a nook of shrubs, a slight, brown-eyed woman sitting in one, sitting palpably waiting. "Joan, would you do good works?" he said. "Let this day slip for it." She looked up at him quickly. "Come with me, use persuasion, get the Chauntsey child back to London to her mother. I'll drive her up." Joan Blacker looked at the river, seen dimly through the trees, at the wall of shrubs about the hidden nook. They had not many days like this. Then wistfully she looked at Innistenne's strong, rugged face--a look with a shade of fear in it, the fear which must haunt each woman who has sold her birthright, purity, that what is so much to her may be mere pastime to the man she loves. Joan Blacker might have been moderately unhappy, moderately lonely all her life, if Innistenne had not come across her path. "The dark Adonis is fitting arrows to his bow," said Innistenne. "He delights in the bringing to earth of foolish, half-fledged birdlings. We shall be back early, Joan. Come--help me."