"She is very charming, I am told," he said. "I cannot testify to the fact from personal experience, for you can't exactly call a person charming who deliberately snubs you." "How do you mean?" said his mother. "I didn't know you had ever met Miss Norreys, and if you have, why should you think she snubbed you?" "Because she did," Eric replied simply. Winifred's eyes sparkled. Her admiration for Hertha rose still higher. "Just what I should have expected of her," she thought to herself. "My dear Eric," said his mother, with a very slight touch of annoyance in her tone, "I think you talk nonsense sometimes." He smiled. "Sometimes, perhaps, but not always," he said. But he rose from his seat as he spoke, for he was more than quick at reading his mother's feelings, and went towards the piano. "I'll look out the songs, mother, that I want to try over," he remarked. "That's to say, if you are still good for a little practising before dinner." "Certainly I am. Indeed, we hurried home partly on that account," Mrs Balderson replied. "I will run up-stairs and take off my things in a moment. And you, dears, will have a little quiet time for your letters, and for resting, if you are tired." "I shall be glad to write my letters, but I am not the least tired, thank you," said Winifred, in her clear, slightly incisive tone, almost as if resenting the kindly imputation. "I _am_, rather," said Celia gently. "I scarcely see how you could help it, after such a busy day," agreed Mrs Balderson. "You have been on the go since early this morning. Such a contrast from your regular restful life at home. Not that we Londoners can stand so much fatigue as country people often imagine we can, fancying that a rush is our usual existence." She was leaving the room as she spoke, but stopped to add, "Remember I want you to be fresh this evening, though it is only a small party. Your cousin is coming, for one." "Oh dear," said Winifred, in a half-complaining voice, when her hostess had gone, "I forgot about Lennox being in London just now. Mrs Balderson really need not have troubled to ask him. We have quite enough of him at home." Eric glanced at her. "I fear we can scarcely put him off now, except with grave discourtesy," he said. And Winifred could not tell if he was laughing at her or not. "Besides," he went on, "though I cannot hope the fact would carry any weight with it, I am very fond of Lennox. I do my best to see something of him whenever I get a chance." "Oh yes," said Winifred, coolly, "I know you and he are chums. Well, as long as he does not sit beside me at dinner and entertain me with questions about the cows and the pigs and the old women at home, whom I am more than thankful to forget for a week or two--"