She held out a determined hand. Mr Musgrave was faced with the greatest dilemma he had ever experienced. What was he to do? Courtesy demanded that he should take her hand; to ignore it would be unpardonable. To extend the left hand was equally impossible; to offer the right was to acknowledge his duplicity, and might lead to an altogether wrong conception of his motives. A man when he acts upon impulse is not necessarily guided by any motive. For the fraction of a second he hesitated; then, with perfect gravity, he drew his arm from behind his back, and with the hand still wearing the torn fragments of the lost glove he silently touched her fingers. Peggy's grey eyes were on his face; they did not fall, he observed, once to his hand. He felt grateful to her. A little tact--and tact is but the dictates of a kindly nature--smoothes over many awkward situations. He returned with her to the gate and opened it for her, and raised his hat gravely as she passed through, to be greeted with boisterous effusiveness by Diogenes, who had reluctantly waited outside. "He's rather a dear, Diogenes," she said, as she proceeded down the road, a little more soberly now. "He made me feel a little mean female cad." John Musgrave, returning along the path, drew off the torn glove and slipped it into his pocket. Another link had been formed in the chain of impressions. By the time Peggy reached the Hall her self-abasement had evaporated, and her usual good spirits reasserted themselves. She made directly for the drawing-room, where Mrs Chadwick, after a disappointing afternoon, lay limply against the cushions of a sofa, solacing herself with the inevitable cigarette. She looked round at Peggy's entrance, and was so relieved to see some one bright and young and wholesome that the resentment she was prepared to show vanished--in her welcoming smile. Peggy was one of those fortunate people who disarm wrath by reason of unfailing good temper. "You are late," Mrs Chadwick said. "If you want fresh tea you will have to ring for it." "I don't mind it cold," Peggy returned, attending to her needs at the tea-table and smiling pleasantly to herself the while. "Tired?" she asked, dropping comfortably into a seat, and surveying her aunt inquiringly above the tea-cup in her hand. "Tired and bored," Mrs Chadwick answered. "Been entertaining the aborigines, I suppose?" "Yes. You might have stayed to help me. These people... Peggy, I consider it is in the nature of a solecism to be so dull; it's a breach of good taste." "They can't help it," Peggy said soothingly. "I expect if we had lived all our days in Moresby we should be dull too. It's stultifying. I am sorry you have had such a slow time. I've been enjoying myself--hugely. I've had most surprising adventures." Mrs Chadwick laughed.