Hermione spoke perfect English and when she said Papa she laid the stress on the last syllable. “I must beg you not to worry your sister, Hermione,” said Mr. Brett quietly. “If you think I look ill, I’d be obliged if you’d grieve in secret. I don’t happen to be specially ill, so you don’t need to grieve unless you want to.” “I shall have to depend on John, then,” said Hermione, turning her beautiful magnetic gaze upon her future brother-in-law. “He must tell me everything—since I am exiled. I feel already as if I could depend on John!” Mr. Brett’s half closed eyes met his brilliant daughter’s. Something passed between them as vivid and as antagonistic as the report of a pistol, but there was no explosion. They looked at each other until Elise, flushed with excitement, came in to greet them. She gave a little cry of joy as she caught sight of her sister. “How too perfectly sweet of you, Hermione!” she cried. “I hardly dared hope you’d come. I told them to set for you, but I was so afraid you’d be too sick—I didn’t even warn John!” Hermione closed the sentence with a kiss. “Why, honey,” she said, “did you suppose I wouldn’t just be _alive_ to please you?” Hermione said this beautifully, with an exquisite maternal gentleness which hung about her like a sunny atmosphere. John was unable to say afterwards what Hermione did with the situation, but she certainly transformed rather an awkward little family dinner party into a successful pageant. All her challenges were soft as gossamer, but they made John sit up. He felt himself growing brilliant to meet them. He said some really neat things about the war, sound, sensible things with a flavour to them. He revised the Cabinet and explained the subtle points of allied diplomacy. He saw that Elise was proud of him. Elise was transformed also; she had more colour in her, and more life, and she was, strangely enough, more American. She sat up, very straight and slim, with a little triumphant flush on her cheeks. Her pink pearls were twisted round her throat and she wore a rest gown of pink and silver brocade. Nothing ever made Elise feel so sure of herself as the sight of those she loved appearing to their advantage. Hermione leaned back in her easy chair, and every now and then the light caught the diamonds round her throat and in her hair; but they were the only things that shone about her. A less clever woman than Hermione might have tried to impress John with her own personality and she would have failed. John was too deeply in love to notice any personality that did not contribute to the credit of his beloved. Mr. Brett sat in impenetrable silence. He poured out their wine and handed cigarettes, and he ate with his usual indifference the small and regulated dishes which kept him alive.