Tommy thrust his hands into the pockets of his grey flannels and declared she was a wonder. Whereupon they proceeded to Moleham and after lunch at “The Black Boy,” motored back to Chelsea. These were days filled with a myriad activities. The dinner-party engaged her curious attention. She sent back proofs of the menu and name cards time after time to the firm of art printers before she was satisfied. Then she took them to Quixtus. He was delighted. “But, my dear Clementina, why are you taking all this ridiculous trouble?” She laughed in her gruff way, and summoned Spriggs to another dark and awful interview. A day or two before the dinner, Mrs. Fontaine who, although she had suggested the idea, did not view a dinner-party as a world-shaking phenomenon, bethought her of the matter. A pretty little note had summoned Quixtus to tea. They were alone. “I have been wondering, my dear Dr. Quixtus,” she said, sweetly, her soft eyes on his, as soon as she had heard of the acceptances of the people in whom she was interested—“I have been wondering whether we are good enough friends for me to be audacious.” He smiled an assurance. “If I brought you a few flowers for the table would you accept them? And if you did, would you let me come and arrange them for you? It would be such a pleasure. Even the best trained servants can’t give the little touch that a woman can.” Quixtus blushed. It was difficult to be ungracious to the flower of womanhood; yet the flower of womanhood had come too late in the day with her gracious proposal. He explained, wishing to soften the necessary refusal, that he had already called in the help of his artistic friends, Miss Clementina Wing and Tommy Burgrave. “Why didn’t you send for me? Didn’t you think of me?” “I did not venture,” said he. “I have been deluding myself with the fancy that we were friends.” She sighed and looked at him with feminine significance. “Nothing venture nothing win.” But Quixtus, simple soul, was too genuinely distressed by obvious happenings to follow the insidious scent. With great wisdom Clementina had shown him her water-colour design, and he knew that Mrs. Fontaine, with all her daintiness, could not compete with the faultless taste and poetic imagination of a great artist. He wondered why so finely sensitive a nature as the flower of womanhood did not divine this. Her insistence jarred on him ever so little. And yet he shrank from wounding susceptibilities. “I never thought you would be interested in such trivial domestic matters,” said he. “It is the little things that count.” For the first time in his intercourse with her, he felt uncomfortable. Here was the lady maintaining her reproach of neglect. If she took so much interest in this wretched dinner-party, why had she not offered her services at once? Unwittingly he contrasted her inaction with Clementina’s irresistible energy. In answer to her remark he said, smiling: