There was an audacious sound in her voice. Her long talk with Leo Ulford had given her back her belief in herself, her confidence in her beauty, her reliance on her youth. “You have a right to believe in it. But Casa Felice is mine.” “Even to buy it was a defiance--in a way.” “Perhaps so. But then--” “But then you have set out and you must not turn back, Sir Donald. Baptise your wonderful house yourself by filling it with happiness. Another gave it its name. Give it yourself the reason for the name.” Happiness seemed to shine suddenly in the sound of her speaking voice, as it shone in her singing voice when the theme of her song was joy. Sir Donald’s manner lost its self-consciousness, its furtive diffidence. “You--you come and give my house its real baptism,” he said, with a flash of ardour that, issuing from him, was like fire bursting out of a dreary marsh land. “Will you? This August?” “But,” she hesitated. “Isn’t Mr. Carey coming?” At this moment they came into a big drawing-room that immediately preceded the ballroom, with which it communicated by an immense doorway hung with curtains of white velvet. They could see in the distance the dancers moving rather indifferently in a lancers. Lord Holme and Miss Schley were dancing in the set nearest to the doorway, and on the side that faced the drawing-room. Directly Lady Holme saw the ballroom she saw them. A sudden sense of revolt, the defiance of joy carried on into the defiance of anger, rose up in her. “If Mr. Carey is coming I’ll come too, and baptise your house,” she said. Sir Donald looked surprised, but he answered, with a swiftness that did not seem to belong to old age: “That is a bargain, Lady Holme. I regard that as a bargain.” “I’ll not go back on it.” There was a hard sound in her voice.