Denise looked up, startled by momentary fear. Surely Esmé was more than content with her share of the bargain. Was glad to be rid of her unwanted brat; to have ample allowance and be free. For a minute she saw what it might be if Esmé failed her. But Denise was shallowly optimistic; she laughed the fears away; she kissed Esmé affectionately. "It was a great thought, and it's splendidly over," she whispered--"over for us both." "And you? You really begin to feel that he is yours?" whispered Esmé back, almost fiercely. "I believe I do. I shall have forgotten it completely in ten years' time," laughed Lady Blakeney. "And--shall I?" said Esmé to herself. CHAPTER VI "Some people," said Mousie Cavendish, "appear to have come into a fortune." She touched Esmé Carteret's sable coat, stroking the soft fur, her small greenish eyes looking up wickedly. "Friends ... are nice things," said Mousie, softly. "Hey, my pretty Esmé." Esmé flushed. Five minutes before she had grumbled at her poverty, now she came down in her splendid wrap waiting for the motor. Money had never seemed to go so fast. The half-year's allowance from Denise had been spent in a day. More new frocks, new habits had seemed necessary. A restlessness haunted Esmé; she was not satisfied with anything, she was nervous, lacked appetite, had grown thin. She was doing the last of the hunting season at Coombe Regis now, an old Elizabethan house taken by the Holbrooks. Their only difficulty, as Mousie said sweetly, is "that they cannot remake the bricks with gold dust, it's so ordinary to have one's house made of clay and straw and water, otherwise bricks." There were horses in the stables, sleek, shining hunters, belonging to friends who came to stay. Esmé hired from a local stable. She rode hard and straight, but came in tired after her day; her old perfect health had deserted her. "There," said Mousie, looking out onto the chill March day, "is Luke, our host, seeking for something he may spend money on. He wants to be a peer next birthday, and his hopes are high." The flowers in the old-fashioned flower-garden were a blaze of magnificence. Mr Holbrook was looking at them, greatly interested in one patch of pure white daffodils because he had paid ten pounds a piece for the bulbs. The Cabinet minister who was coming to stay was a florist. A gift of some of these might please him greatly. The Holbrooks had made Coombe Regis into a passable imitation of a Hotel de Luxe. The old hall was now a palm court, heated by hot air, its great open fireplace offended by a new grate which held coals; the drawing-room was magnificent in dull blue and gold; stiffly hideous, with great mirrors shining everywhere. The dining-room was a mass of mechanical devices, of lifts and electric heaters and telephones to everywhere, the small tables were all polished wood spread with slips of real lace. One dined scratchily off luke-warm silver, one's breakfast cup was Crown Derby set in filigree.