“I never asked you to swank about me,” said Hal slowly. He was standing with his back to her, looking out of the window, and bidding good-bye to a Nina deferential in spirit, though offering, for appearance’s sake, a casual surface to his lordly good humour. A Nina persistently engaged in his service, preoccupied with his interests, obstinately compelling family and outsiders to acknowledge his supremacy. Hal sighed, relinquishing his glorious past. “I wish to God you’d shut up and go away.” With her hand on the door, Nina turned: “How was it found out?” “Found out?” Hal was glad of a cue to be angry in his turn. “What the devil do you mean--found out? I told Aunt Lavvy directly----” “Directly she asked you? It was at the ’phone, and you lied about it. I was there and heard you. You pretended to look in your pockets.” Hal shrugged his shoulders. “All the same I told Aunt Lavvy myself. Directly after lunch.” But “directly I came to my senses ...” was what he had been going to say before. “I suppose she’ll try and shield you. I wouldn’t in her place.” “You would. But she won’t. She’s livid.” “_Aunt Lavvy!_” A short scornful laugh from Nina. Aunt Lavvy, with all her gentle wisdom, her sweet eyes, her pretty dainty habits, her silvery sense of humour, her tolerance, her tact, and the secret niche of favouritism which Hal and Nina jointly occupied in her heart--_livid_ indeed! She would be deeply sorry, yes! Nothing more damaging than that. “Better go and find out for yourself.” “I will, then.” But Aunt Lavvy was down in the drawing-room, having tea. Tea, as the first public re-union since lunch, was also the tangible betrayal of moral disorganization at the Laburnums. Aunt Lavvy, Miss Roberts, Ursula and Lottie were present. Mrs. Maxwell and Grace had been invited to tea with Mrs. Fennimore, the banker’s wife; and, after a hurried talk-over with Miss Roberts, Grace had decided it the wiser policy and the truest service to her country--i. e., the family--to go as though nothing had happened, and make excuses for Mrs. Maxwell, whose blotched and tear-swollen condition still kept her to her room. “You see, Miss Roberts, nobody outside the house _knows_ anything yet, and we mustn’t let them begin to suspect....” Hal, aware that by some pressure of invisible law he would have to appear at dinner, renounced his tea, and, like his mother, shut himself up in his room. He shut himself up there too long, so that the prospect of ever leaving it and facing publicity swelled to abnormal difficulty. Bunny forlornly marched away for a solitary walk; and William, with the precaution of a large bun annexed from the tea-table, had followed him. He did not catch up with Bunny, but was satisfied to march unobserved about a hundred yards behind him. He saw him fling himself face downwards in a field; sat down and waited ... and finally arrived home about eight minutes in Bunny’s rear.