“As I am ready to sell myself!” the girl echoed. “And I _am_ ready, Robin. It’s all very well for you to stand there and preach ideals at me, but I’m sick and disgusted at the life we’ve been leading for the past three years, hovering on the verge of ruin all the time, dunned by tradesmen and having to borrow even from servants ... yes, from old servants of the family ... to pay Mother’s bridge debts. Mother’s a good sort. Father spent all her money for her and she was brought up in exactly the same helpless way as she brought up me. I can do absolutely nothing except the sort of elementary nursing which we all learnt in the war, and if I don’t marry well Mother will have to keep a boarding-house or do something ghastly like that. I’m not going to pretend that I’m thinking only of her, because I’m not. I can’t face a long engagement with no prospects except castles in Spain. I don’t mean to be callous, Robin, but I expect I am naturally hard. Hartley Parrish is a good sort. He’s very fond of me, and he will see that Mother lives comfortably for the rest of her life. I’ve promised to marry him because I like him and he’s a suitable match. And I don’t see by what right you try and run him down to me behind his back! If it’s jealousy, then it shows a very petty spirit!” Robin Greve stepped close up to Mary Trevert. His eyes were very angry and his jaw was set very square. “If you are determined to sell yourself to the highest bidder,” he said, “I suppose there’s no stopping you. But you’re making a mistake. If Parrish were all you claim for him, you might not repent of his marriage so long as you did not care for somebody else. But I know you love me, and it breaks my heart to see you blundering into everlasting unhappiness ...” “At least Hartley will be able to keep me,” the girl flashed out. Directly she had spoken she regretted her words. A red flush spread slowly over Robin Greve’s face. Then he laughed drily. “You won’t be the first woman he’s kept!” he retorted, and stamped out of the billiard-room. The girl gave a little gasp. Then she reddened with anger. “How dare he?” she cried, stamping her foot; “how dare he?” She sank on the lounge and, burying her face in her hands, burst into tears. “Oh, Robin, Robin, dear!” she sobbed—incomprehensibly, for she was a woman. CHAPTER II. AT TWILIGHT There is a delicious snugness, a charming lack of formality, about the ceremony of afternoon tea in an English country-house—it is much too indefinite a rite to dignify it by the name of meal—which makes it the most pleasant reunion of the day. For English country-house parties consist, for the most part, of a succession of meals to which the guests flock the more congenially as, in the interval, they have contrived to avoid one another’s companionship.