'Who's what?' asked Wemyss. 'You do think it's a jolly window, don't you, little Love?' The footsteps on the stairs stopped, and a gong she had noticed at the angle of the turn was sounded. Her body, which had shrunk together, relaxed. What a fool she was. 'Lunch,' said Wemyss. 'Come along--but isn't it a jolly window, little Love?' '_Very_ jolly.' He turned her round to march her off to the dining-room, while the housemaid, who had come down from the landing, continued to beat the gong, though there they were obeying it under her very nose. 'Don't you think that's a good place to have a gong?' he asked, raising his voice because the gong, which had begun quietly, was getting rapidly louder. 'Then when you're upstairs in your sitting-room you'll hear it just as distinctly as if you were downstairs. Vera----' But what he was going to say about Vera was drowned this time in the increasing fury of the gong. 'Why doesn't she leave off?' Lucy tried to call out to him, straining her voice to its utmost, for the maid was very good at the gong and was now extracting the dreadfullest din out of it. 'Eh?' shouted Wemyss. In the dining-room, whither they were preceded by the parlourmaid, who at last had left off standing still and had opened the door for them, as Lucy could hear the gong continuing to be beaten though muffled now by doors and distance, she again said, 'Why doesn't she leave off?' Wemyss took out his watch. 'She will in another fifty seconds,' he said. Lucy's mouth and eyebrows became all inquiry. 'It is beaten for exactly two and a half minutes before every meal,' he explained. 'Oh?' said Lucy. 'Even when we're visibly collected?' 'She doesn't know that.' 'But she saw us.' 'But she doesn't know it officially.' 'Oh,' said Lucy. 'I had to make that rule,' said Wemyss, arranging his knives and forks more accurately beside his plate, 'because they would leave off beating it almost as soon as they'd begun, and then Vera was late and her excuse was that she hadn't heard. For a time after that I used to have it beaten all up the stairs right to the door of her sitting-room. Isn't it a fine gong? Listen----' And he raised his hand. '_Very_ fine,' said Lucy, who was thoroughly convinced there wasn't a finer, more robust gong in existence. 'There. Time's up,' he said, as three great strokes were followed by a blessed silence. He pulled out his watch again. 'Let's see. Yes--to the tick. You wouldn't believe the trouble I had to get them to keep time.' 'It's wonderful,' said Lucy.