The muffled notes of the gong swelled out brazenly through the silent house. They echoed down the softly carpeted corridors to the library where the master of the house sat at his desk. For days he had been immersed in the figures of the new issue which Hornaway’s, the vast engineering business of his creation, was about to put on the market. They reverberated up the fine old oak staircase to the luxurious Louis XV bedroom, where Lady Margaret Trevert lay on her bed idly smiling through an amusing novel. They crashed through the thickly padded baize doors leading to the servants’ hall, where, at sixpence a hundred, Parrish’s man, Jay, was partnering Lady Margaret’s maid against Mrs. Heever, the housekeeper, and Robert, the chauffeur, at a friendly game of bridge. And they even boomed distantly into the far-away billiard-room and broke into the talk which Robin Greve was having with Mary Trevert. “Damn!” exclaimed Greve savagely, as the distant gonging came to his ears. “It’s the gong for tea,” said Mary demurely. She was sitting on one of the big leather sofas lining the long room. Robin, as he gazed down at her from where he stood with his back against the edge of the billiard-table, thought what an attractive picture she made in the half-light. The lamps over the table were lit, but the rest of the room was almost dark. In that lighting the thickly waving dark hair brought out the fine whiteness of the girl’s skin. There was love, and a great desire for love, in her large dark eyes, but the clear-cut features, the well-shaped chin, and the firm mouth, the lips a little full, spoke of ambition and the love of power. “I’ve been here three whole days,” said Robin, “and I’ve not had two words with you alone, Mary. And hardly have I got you to myself for a quiet game of pills when that rotten gong goes ...” “I’m sorry you’re disappointed at missing your game,” the girl replied mischievously, “but I expect you will be able to get a game with Horace or one of the others after tea ...” Robin kicked the carpet savagely. “You know perfectly well I don’t want to play billiards ...” He looked up and caught the girl’s eye. For a fraction of a second he saw in it the expression which every man at least once in his life looks to see in the eyes of one particular woman. In the girl’s dark-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes he saw the dumb appeal, the mute surrender, which, as surely as the white flag on the battlements in war, is the signal of capitulation in woman. But the expression was gone on the instant. It passed so swiftly that, for a second, Robin, seeing the gently mocking glance that succeeded it, wondered whether he had been mistaken. But he was a man of action—a glance at his long, well-moulded head, his quick, wide-open eye, and his square jaw would have told you that—and he spoke. “It’s no use beating about the bush,” he said. “Mary, I’ve got so fond of you that I’m just miserable when you’re away from me ...”