The partridges were very plentiful that autumn at Clare; the pheasants never gave better sport. Dorothy invited Olive and her husband, a pleasant young actor called Airdale, to visit Clare, but Olive had to decline, because she was going to have a baby. Sylvia Scarlett Dorothy did not invite; but Sylvia Lonsdale came with her brother, and late in the autumn the Clarehavens went to stay with the Clevedens in Warwickshire. Lord Cleveden talked to Tony about the need for a strong colonial policy, and Lady Cleveden talked to Dorothy about the imperative necessity of finding a wife for Arthur at once. The shooting was not so good as at Clare, and Tony decided that he required London as a tonic for the rural depopulation of his mind. "These fellows who've been in administrative posts get too self-important," he confided to Dorothy. "Now I don't take any interest in the colonies. Except, of course, British East and the Straits. When a fellow talks to me about Queensland my mind becomes a blank. I feel as if I was being prepared for Confirmation, don't you know?" They reached town toward the end of November, and within a week the old set was round them. Baccarat and _chemin de fer_, the Vanity and the Orient, smart little dances and rowdy little suppers, Mrs. Foster-ffrench and the Hon. Mrs. Richard Mainwaring, they were back in the middle of them all. Sylvia Scarlett turned up again, still apparently with plenty of money to waste on gambling. She and Dorothy drifted farther apart, if that were possible, and their coolness was added to by Sylvia's recommendation of a rising young painter called Walker for Dorothy's portrait, which Dorothy considered a failure, though when afterward she was painted by an artist who had already risen that was a failure, too. Sylvia seemed to misunderstand her wantonly; Dorothy armed herself against her old friend's contempt and tried to create an impression of complete self-sufficiency. Once in the spring an occasion presented itself for knocking down the barrier they had erected between themselves. Sylvia had just brought the sum of her losses at cards to over six hundred pounds, and Dorothy, on hearing of it, expressed her concern. "I suppose you wonder where I find the money to lose?" Sylvia asked. "Oh no, I wasn't thinking that. I'm not interested in your private affairs," said Dorothy, freezing at the other's aggressive tone. "No?" said Sylvia. "You easily forget about your friends' private affairs, don't you? But I warned Olive that your chauffeur wouldn't be able to find the way to West Kensington."