But beyond doubt Sir Creighton took deeply to heart the frustration of his incipient efforts as a matchmaker. His daughter was surprised at his head-shakings and his thoughtful pauses--at his general abstraction. She knew enough of him to be well aware that it was not his own work which disturbed him: he was accustomed to made merry over the little aberrations of adapted electricity, just as some fathers (with trusted memories) make merry over the vagaries of their sons, and as some women (with a sense of humour) can smile at the fringes of their under-housemaids. It was perfectly clear that Sir Creighton was profoundly discouraged at the failure of his attempt to make Josephine and Pierce fall in love, each with each. He felt as if Fate had openly sneered at him and he was looking about for a way of retaliating. So much at least his daughter gathered from his manner, and his frank admissions. The frank admissions of a man count for something in any honest endeavour that one may make to determine what is on his mind. “Do you know what a straight flush is, my dear?” he enquired as he rose from the table. “I thought that I had the joker,” he added thoughtfully--regretfully. (He was the best poker player in the Royal Society.) Amber had herself been thinking out a scheme of retaliation, and it was directed against her friend who had been reticent to a point of unfriendliness. A friend should be permitted to share her friend’s infirmities but Josephine had left her to read the announcement of her engagement in the papers. After some thought she came to the conclusion that she would be out when Josephine should call. She took it for granted that Josephine intended to call, and so made arrangements for going to the Technical School of Literature immediately after lunch. She would have gone before lunch--for she had not been latterly so regular an attendant as Mr. Richmond could have wished--but that for the fact that her mother had asked Lord Lullworth to drop in and have lunch with them, and Amber’s scheme of retaliation did not go so far as to compass the personal slighting of even the least of her mother’s guests. And Lord Lullworth came.