The Oyster

by Peer

CHAPTER VI

"Some people," said Mousie Cavendish, "appear to have come into a fortune."

She touched Esmé Carteret's sable coat, stroking the soft fur, her small greenish eyes looking up wickedly.

"Friends ... are nice things," said Mousie, softly. "Hey, my pretty Esmé."

Esmé flushed. Five minutes before she had grumbled at her poverty, now she came down in her splendid wrap waiting for the motor.

Money had never seemed to go so fast. The half-year's allowance from Denise had been spent in a day. More new frocks, new habits had seemed necessary. A restlessness haunted Esmé; she was not satisfied with anything, she was nervous, lacked appetite, had grown thin.

She was doing the last of the hunting season at Coombe Regis now, an old Elizabethan house taken by the Holbrooks.

Their only difficulty, as Mousie said sweetly, is "that they cannot remake the bricks with gold dust, it's so ordinary to have one's house made of clay and straw and water, otherwise bricks."

There were horses in the stables, sleek, shining hunters, belonging to friends who came to stay. Esmé hired from a local stable. She rode hard and straight, but came in tired after her day; her old perfect health had deserted her.

"There," said Mousie, looking out onto the chill March day, "is Luke, our host, seeking for something he may spend money on. He wants to be a peer next birthday, and his hopes are high."

The flowers in the old-fashioned flower-garden were a blaze of magnificence. Mr Holbrook was looking at them, greatly interested in one patch of pure white daffodils because he had paid ten pounds a piece for the bulbs. The Cabinet minister who was coming to stay was a florist. A gift of some of these might please him greatly.

The Holbrooks had made Coombe Regis into a passable imitation of a Hotel de Luxe. The old hall was now a palm court, heated by hot air, its great open fireplace offended by a new grate which held coals; the drawing-room was magnificent in dull blue and gold; stiffly hideous, with great mirrors shining everywhere.

The dining-room was a mass of mechanical devices, of lifts and electric heaters and telephones to everywhere, the small tables were all polished wood spread with slips of real lace. One dined scratchily off luke-warm silver, one's breakfast cup was Crown Derby set in filigree.

"So annoying of the hens not to learn to lay golden eggs," remarked Mrs Cavendish one morning when she had examined half a dozen things smoking over the electric heaters. "What's the use of this pure gold Orpington here sitting on a silver nest when she only hatches things which can be purchased at a penny and twopence each. No, I refuse to eat truffles and cream and salmon for breakfast, nor do I require ham and champagne sauce."

A big party had assembled for the ball of Regis Hunt races. Dull people and smart people, who ate their meals together with regret, and drifted apart directly afterwards. The dull people ate the ornamented dishes and sighed inwardly for roast mutton, the smart people picked at them and wanted the French cookery their greedy souls adored.

But Mr Holbrook was content. He was getting on. He did kind things which he concealed rigorously, and he did generous things for his own benefit, and his peerage loomed ahead.

"My dear love," said Holbrook, coming into the library. He had furnished the shelves with first editions of various authors whom no one ever read. Statues stood, coldly graceful in corners, gleaming white against the brown background. The library table carried a writing set of leather worked in gold. Grace Holbrook was dictating letters to her secretary, a slim girl with a pink nose and an irritated expression.

"My dear," said Holbrook. "Do you think—?" He paused.

"You can go, Miss Harris," said Mrs Holbrook.

"Do you think," he said—"hum, Critennery has a little weakness ... she dances at the Magnificent, in some gauze ... that we could have her down. Lady Ermyntrude is not coming."

"We couldn't," said Mrs Holbrook, hastily. "The Duchess is coming."

"Well, it's quite his little weakness and he can do as he likes," said Holbrook, mournfully. "I do want Henry to be Lord Regis, my love. It's just to dance on Saturday. I would arrange with Hewson of the Magnificent. And dancers are so fashionable."

"My dear Luke, the Duchess of Dullshire will be here," said his wife, firmly, "and the Trents, and Lord Frensham. We couldn't. The Duchess was at the Magnificent, I remember seeing it mentioned—she must have seen the woman without any ... that is dancing."

"She is so very graceful," said Luke. "Well, my love, of course if we cannot. But artistes do go everywhere now. She lunches with Lady Ermyntrude, and I thought that her presence, combined with a present of those Angel bulb roots; but if you object ... well, it's quite a little weakness, my love. Critennery would have liked to talk to Mavis Moover."

Mrs Holbrook wavered visibly. "If the Duchess had not been in front," she said; "still, she's very blind and won't wear glasses; she may not have noticed the gauze. I don't want our party to be spoilt, Luke, but—"

"Think it over, my love," said Holbrook, going out. "Think it over. And there's Jimmie Gore Helmsley coming. I see his name down. I don't like him, Gracie. He's a bad 'un, my love."

"He goes everywhere. He's running a horse," said Mrs Holbrook. "That long-legged bay thing we saw galloping to-day. People say it will win. He goes everywhere, Luke."

"So much the worse," said Mr Holbrook, "for everywhere."

Something had happened to the motor Esmé was going out in—a tyre had punctured as it was starting and the chauffeur gave warning of an hour's delay. Esmé yawned, waiting in the over-heated hall.

Bertie would be home in a week; she would want more wine at cost price from her host. Seeing him come out she flashed a friendly smile at him. She asked him to send her some.

But Luke Holbrook, who had been glad to help a pretty girl in a tiny flat, saw no reason for losing a profit to a woman in magnificent sables.

"Want more hock?" he said. "The same as last, eh? Yes, I told you to ask me—but it's gone up—gone up, and whisky too, and port.... I'll send it on to you. Kind of me. It's my business, pretty lady, my business. No bother at all."

Esmé did not realize that he meant to charge her full price.

"We've had such a hunt, we came back early." Sybil Chauntsey ran into the hall in her habit, young Knox close behind her. Mrs Holbrook approved of love. She had asked them together. "Oh, such a run," babbled Sybil. "And my chestnut was glorious, the dear."

"Jimmie always said that the chestnut was his best horse." Mousie Cavendish's thin lips curved in a spiteful smile.

Young Knox started, looked at Sybil.

"I thought it was your own horse," he said gravely.

"Captain Gore Helmsley lent him to me for the season. I call him mine. I thought that you knew."

"No, I did not." The young soldier seemed to have forgotten his gallop; he looked tired and put out.

"The car, madam, is ready." A butler who bore the mark of experience stamped upon his impassive face came forward. Esmé fastened her coat, asked for a companion—Mrs Cavendish would come. Her spiteful tongue made light strokes at reputations as the car hummed along. No one escaped. No one was immune. She had come to drive to find out who had given Esmé the coat, for the fair girl had never made herself auspicious.

"Met heaps of nice things abroad, I s'pose.... Why didn't you order a limousine, Esmé? I hate the wind in these open things ... heaps of princes, I suppose, and rich potentates, didn't you, in your travels?"

"Heaps," said Esmé. "At least we must have seen them sometimes."

"Funniest thing rushing off like that for all these months, so unlike Denise Blakeney. It didn't agree with you, Esmé; it made you thin, and different somehow."

"The climate," Esmé said, flushing a little.

"And fancy Denise not coming home for the event, trusting herself to foreign doctors and nurses."

"She did not intend to stay," Esmé answered. "She meant to be back."

"I saw the son and heir. A great fat thing, fair like Cyril. Well, it settles all the difficulties then. Denise doesn't play the rôle of devoted mother; she says the baby bores her."

A sudden wave of anger shook Esmé—fear for her child—it might be neglected, grow up unloved. Then they stopped at the toy shop at Regis.

"A parcel for Mrs Holbrook," she said to the man. Obsequious assistants ran out to the Coombe Regis motors.

A hunting man, still in his splashed pink, stopped them. He, too, was full of the great run.

"Coming out to-morrow to Welcombe," he said. "We're all training down."

Esmé's face clouded.

"I can't afford it. I owe the man twenty pounds. I've done two days this week."

A year ago Esmé would have almost expected a horse offered to her. Major Jackson had fifteen of them; she had only to look appealing then, talked of poverty, and horses came as from the clouds.

Now he too looked at her coat. Its owner could not want help.

"Other engagements," he chaffed lightly. "You're losing your keenness, Mrs Carteret. Fact."

Esmé turned away ill-humouredly. They drove back to Coombe Regis, the open car humming through the cool spring afternoon. Mousie Cavendish questioning, surmising, as they went.

The palm court was crowded now, partitions had been knocked away, a room thrown in to make it large enough; there was no gathering round for tea. Trays were placed on the little glass-topped satinwood tables. Hot biscuits and scones were kept hot on electric heaters. The butler laid a species of buffet covered with huge iced cakes, and relays of sandwiches if the supplies on each tray were not sufficient.

"Only one thing required—cold roast beef and plum pudding," Mousie said ill-naturedly, as she looked at it. The tea-pots were all silver gilt, the little piles of cakes and sandwiches rested on real lace. In the drawing-room Mrs Holbrook gathered her dullest guests at a table, where she poured out tea herself, away from the more clouded atmosphere of the hall.

Several expensive toy dogs sat about on the blue and gold brocade and ate scraps of cake merely to oblige the guests.

They dined off minced chicken and fillet of beef, and breakfasted off cream and grape nuts. Mr Holbrook liked them because he had paid three hundred for Li Chi the pug, and two for Holboin Santoi the pomeranian.

"Luke," said Mrs Holbrook, taking her second cup of chilly tea. "Luke, I think we could do it; the Duchess may never know who she is."

"Do you really, my love?" said Holbrook, briskly. "Then I'll write to her manager and to her, enclosing a note from you. She will go so well with the bulbs—Critennery must be pleased."

Esmé had found a pile of letters waiting for her, long envelopes containing accounts rendered. She did not know where her money had gone to. Nothing seemed paid for.

She was going to her room, walking on carpets so thick that her feet sank into them, with all the silence of riches round her, doors which opened and shut noiselessly, deadened footsteps, when she stopped startled.

"Ah, Madame!" Marie, her late maid, smiled at her. "Ah, Madame." Marie was enchanted. She had regretted so that Madame had been obliged to part with her.

"I am with Milady Goold, Madame, and I see Madame has not been well; she is looking delicate, then."

"It was Italy." Esmé was nervous before the Frenchwoman, whose brown eyes looked at her with a curious shrewdness.

"Madame had much travelling with Milady Blakeney? I have been to Reggio, Madame; I have a cousin there."

Esmé turned swiftly to her door to hide her white cheeks. She recovered in a moment. Even if Marie did write or go there, there was nothing to find out. "Yes—it's a dull place, Marie," she said. "And when you're out of a place come back to me. Watson cannot do hair, Marie."

Marie went away smiling—a curious little smile. "There was something curious in all that," she said softly. "Something, but yes, strange—and one day I, Marie, will find it out."

The races were to be on Tuesday. Saturday saw Coombe Regis with every room full. The Cabinet minister felt himself over-honoured in one of the huge state rooms, where the old carved bedstead had been left, and all the electric lights did not seem to dispel the shadows.

"Kind of thing queens died in," said the minister as he took a long walk from his bed to the dressing-table.

The Duchess occupied another vast chamber, made incongruously modern by a low bedstead representing a lily, and bought for a fabulous sum from France. "Absurd," said Her Grace, as she poked into the down pillows and lace-edged sheets arrayed among the inlaid petals. "Also it can't have proper springs."

Her Grace of Dullshire was a large lady of philanthropic tendencies. She kept a herd of prize cows which she sold to her friends for large sums, and prize hens, and she knew a horse when she saw one, so had come for the races. She also liked bridge, when she won. The Duchess was a leader of society, one fully aware of the fact. Her deep voice had power to slide an ambitious clamberer back over the edge of the cliff which she had scaled with difficulty. To be asked to Dullengla Court, where one dined off beef soup, boiled cod, roast mutton, cabbage or turnips, and rice moulds, was to be marked as with an order. The Duke never visited, and the Marquis of Boredom, their son, had so far not been allowed to marry. He had, greatly against his will, been included in this house-party, it being an unfortunate fact that his taste was for attractive ladies on the stage. "I would allow you to marry Lady Sukey Ploddy," said his mother when they got to the door of Coombe Regis; "she will be here." The palm court was brilliant to-night. Shaded lights glowed through the artificial leaves, showing chiffons and satins, laces and silks, and the black-and-white dinner armour of mankind. Rare jewels flashed, faint scents made the air fragrant.

The Cabinet minister, coming down just before dinner, stood on the Duchess's toe in his surprise at catching sight of a dark moving face and a supple, slight form.

"Mavis," said the minister, blankly.... "Oh, so sorry, Duchess. I hope it didn't hurt. Did Homburg last year, y'know. Now if it had been before that...."

The Duchess's hop to a chair shook the palm court. Her only son, coming down in almost painfully well-made clothes, was confiding his woes to a friend. "Absolutely rotten bein' caught for it. Scarcely a girl to speak to, and if there is she'll be off with some Johnny she knew before. Nothin' but Ploddys and that spiteful Cavendish, and oh, hang, rot all round, y'know. Yes, mamma."

"Who?" said the Duchess, "who, Francis, is that nice-looking girl in black?"

"Gracious!" said Lord Boredom. "Lord! it isn't," he paused ... "her name is Moover, mother," he said blandly—"Moover."

"American," summed up the Duchess, accepting her host's arm. Mrs Holbrook sorted the vast party every evening and paired them off for dinner.

Lord Boredom received Lady Sukey Ploddy's substantial hand upon his coat sleeve, and intelligently remarked, "Eh oh, Imagin," when she told him she was looking forward to the races.

The minister took in his hostess, and found the dancer at their table for four. "I like this," said Miss Moover contentedly, taking caviare. "Nice of 'em to ask me, wasn't it? Old Luke—"

"That's your hostess," said the minister, hurriedly. The magnificence of dinner descended upon them and the food. One reached for fish beneath a truffle-spangled vest of sauce; one poked at a snowy tower and found that upon the menu it was harmless chicken in disguise. If the cook did not earn her salary by spending money on elaboration she would be speedily replaced.

Gay voices, light laughter, rang up to the vaulted roof. Armies of powdered footmen moved deftly among the tables. The celebrated Holbrook wines were poured out lavishly.

One finished with bad coffee and took choice of a dozen liqueurs, the blue haze of smoke floating around the heated air. Huge golden boxes, initialled and becrested, stood on the tables, filled with cigars and cigarettes; the butler, faintly proud of so much wasted money, stood for a moment before he left. Red bars gleamed along the shining mahogany from the rich ruby of the port.

The dull people drifted away with their hostess to the drawing-room to read and work and gossip, but the Duchess lingered in the palm court waiting for her son.

"A very nice-looking girl," said Her Grace. "Miss Moover, I think I have seen you somewhere."

"Perhaps," said Mavis, civilly. "Perhaps, Duchess."

Lord Boredom, who had quite woke up, sniggered softly; for the rest of the evening the Cabinet minister, who was a philosopher, realized the power of youth over mere prestige as he watched the Marquis of Boredom devote himself to a demure-looking girl in black, with the manifest approval of his mother.

A gentle feeler to Miss Moover, whose real name was Harris, had resulted in a frank avowal from that young lady that at present her income was several hundreds a week. "And all my own," said Mavis, a little sadly, for she had come to London to work for a mother who had died before her daughter grew famous.

There were a dozen little dramas played out under the high roof—comedy, tragedy, drama, to each its caste, its players and its audience.

Young Oliver Knox's bright face had lost its gaiety. He was a mere everyday soldier, awkward of speech because he loved deeply and pitted against Gore Helmsley, who woke to the game because there was a new chance of losing it. With his black eyes full of the admiration he knew how to throw into them, his words laden with subtle compliment, he followed pretty Sybil, slipped her away from her fretting lover, took her to play bridge, and praised her mistakes as flashes of genius.

The girl was flustered as she found herself playing against Mrs Cavendish and Dolly Frensham, two gamblers of repute. She saw the scores added and settled, heard Jimmie say carelessly that she could settle with him next day, and scarcely knew what she had lost. Esmé flashed careless answer to Gore Helmsley's cool greeting; he had done with her, and yet his coolness hurt. Comedy was played in the palm court, played next day after breakfast, with Miss Mavis Moover as its heroine. The Duchess was quite charmed with her, accepting certain little frivolities as merely transatlantic. Mavis displayed a worthy interest in cows, and was not averse to philanthropy. "You'd be happy in a simple country place," said the Duchess, referring to the vast house with at least ten sitting-rooms, in three of which they camped out.

"I think so," said Mavis, quietly. "I guess so, if I liked the people."

"My love," said Luke Holbrook on Monday morning. "It hasn't quite worked, my love. I fear our hope in the Cabinet has not had the time we intended him to. I fear that nosey boy of the Duchess's has put his foot in the pie," said Luke, sadly.

"Luke!" said his wife.

"Fallen into the dish. All the same, my love. Critennery is leaving to-day."

"He can travel by the same train as his fancy," said Mrs Holbrook, placidly.

The great man, urbanely gracious, came to make his adieux. Holbrook looked at him apologetically. "You will travel up then with Miss Moover," said Mrs Holbrook, brightly; "she leaves this morning."

The Cabinet minister drew on his grey gloves carefully, then adjusted the fingers slowly.

"Lord Boredom," he said, "is motoring Miss Moover to Town just in time for her performance. Good-bye again. So many thanks for a charming visit." He turned to his host with a smile. "Come to me directly you come up," he said. "If you want that baronetcy."

"In the outside lot again," said Holbrook, lugubriously. "But he's a good sort, he may understand, my love."

The races played their part. Gore Helmsley, a splendid rider, won easily, cantering in five lengths in front, his long figure looking its best on horseback, his dark face glowed when he rode. Young Knox's horse fell; the boy came in muddy, shaken, sad in mind, because it was a jostle with his rival which had knocked him down.

Sybil gathered some gold gaily. Jimmy had put a tenner on for her. With a girl's folly she feasted her eyes on tinsel, turning away from the duller mint of hall-marked gold. Here the curtains might fall on a tragedy, fall hurriedly, for the chief actress would have to smile and call it comedy to her audience if she was ever to appear again on Society's stage.

Sybil came laughing to one of the smaller sitting-rooms that evening, a room warm, softly lighted, one ordered as one chose at Coombe Regis. She was having tea then with Gore Helmsley.

"No one will look for us here," he had said as he rang the bell. "Let's have a quiet half-hour. Talk to me, little pal, I'm tired."

Over the indifferent tea, poured out of a gilt teapot, Sybil smiled gaily, held out her day's winnings—twenty pounds.

"See, I owe you money for bridge, for two nights. Take it. I hope there's enough to pay. I did play stupidly."

Jimmie pushed back the pile of gold. "My dear, you lost eighty pounds. What does it matter—that can stand over. I paid the Cavendish for you; she's a cat and would talk."

Sybil cried out, frightened and astonished. Eighty pounds! and besides that she had played in a lady's four and lost another ten. Her mother was not rich; she could not pay easily.

"Keep your pennies," he mocked in lordly tones. "Some day you'll pay me. I am glad to help a little pal." Jimmie meant the payment to be a high one, with interest. He was a merciless human hawk, poising long, swift to strike at the last. "We played sixpennies, you see."

"I never dreamt," Sybil faltered; "I thought it was pennies here."

When you owe a man eighty pounds, when he has paid rather than have you cornered, it would be churlish to spring aside, a prude, if he kisses you softly before you part. If he pulls you to the arm of his chair and keeps you there, holding two small chill hands, it is surely all in good friendship.

Sybil went away with some of the careless youth wiped from her fresh face, with trouble and perplexity in her frank eyes; the big dark man fascinated her, knew how to make her feel a little queen, how to bring the hot blood to her cheeks, but to-night she was half afraid. His little pal! She'd cured his headache—been a brick to stay with him. Instead of playing bridge to-night they'd play piquet in a quiet corner, he whispered.

"You didn't come to tea." Oliver Knox came straight to Sybil in the hall, his face ill-humoured. "I was watching for you."

"No, I was tired," she said, blushing a little.

"And Gore Helmsley did not come—our black Adonis, Miss Chauntsey—can't you see through the man?"

A foolish speech uttered by foolishly, honestly loving youth. Sybil tossed her head angrily and walked away offended.

"Coming to play to-night?" Mousie Cavendish asked her.

Sybil's lips drooped.

"I don't think so. I've lost such a lot. You play too high for me."

"Pooh! What matter. Jimmie doesn't mind. He's full of money now after the race."

"I've lost such a lot," Sybil repeated, forgetting that she was angry with Oliver Knox, turning to him in her trouble, missing the meaning in the woman's words.

"You ought not to play with that crowd. Mrs Cavendish is the best player in London—the quickest to read a face, I'll bet. It's madness, folly."

Another foolish speech. Sybil went off to change. This drama was being played quickly. The girl was stirred, flattered; awakened nature made her a lute too easily played on by a practised hand. She shrank from decision, from promising to marry a soldier of slender fortune, and she knew that decision was near. That night, after dinner, her young lover followed her, took her, almost against her will, away from the others to the library, with its rows of richly-bound volumes, its sombre magnificence.

"Sybil"—the boy's face was white. He was too moved for eloquence. "Sybil, you know I love you. I can't stand by and see that other fellow follow you, as he has followed others. Making you—you remarkable. Sybil, I'm not rich, but I love you, marry me—I'll make you happy."

And—she was not sure—for a moment she felt his arms close round her and dreamt of peace and sheltered love, then again she was not sure, she said so faltering. Give her time ... she muttered.

"Sybil, I can't wait. It's life or death to me. Give the fellow up. Give him back his horse. I'll hire you one. Go, tell him now. It maddens me to see you ride the brute."

Give back the horse, and to-morrow she was to ride the perfect chestnut at the meet. Next day they were going back to London, they were dining with Jimmie, motoring with him. "I'll tell you"—Sybil faltered—"later—I don't know."

An anxious lover is always a fool. He would have no delay, he must know. It was a choice—a challenge to fate. If she took him it must be altogether. She was too young to understand. Sybil was tortured by indecision. How, owing eighty pounds, could she go to her friend and say, I will not ride your horse—I will not dine with you. How could she hurt him?

"Sybil, I thought you cared," a hoarse voice roused her.

"I believe I do. Oh, Oliver, give me time."

"No!" he was going away, leaving next morning. "I cannot share you, Sybil. Oh, friendship. Don't prate of that to me, but, if you want me, send for me. If I can ever help, write or wire. I'll go on loving you as long as I'm alive. As you don't care enough I can go."

He flung out bruised and hurt.

Was it chance or design which had made Jimmie Gore Helmsley talk that day of the worries of a soldier's life.

"Kicked about, never enough money, poky houses, a rattling two-seater, or a dogcart, a dog's life for a pretty woman," Jimmie had said lightly. "Stuck in some wretched country town or in some big station where the dust reeks of the army. I've pitied so many girls who have married soldiers. Think of your beauty now thrown away." And all the time as young Knox pleaded Sybil had recalled these words.

Esmé went back to London next day, back to her little flat.

A bleak wind swept along the streets, dark clouds raced across the sky. It was dreary, intensely cold, the flat was poky, its cosiness seemed to have deserted it, it had become a tawdry box. The furniture looked shabby, worn, the tenants had been careless. Esmé stood discontentedly pulling at her cushions, petulantly moving back china to old places. Her servants were new, inclined to be lazy. The cook looked blankly unenthusiastic as to lunch.

"Couldn't possibly have all that in time to-day, mem. They'd send round something from Harrod's, no doubt."

Esmé lunched ill-humouredly off galantine and tinned peas. She thought of the big houses she had been in; they must move, take a little house. This place was out of the way, inconvenient. She ordered flowers recklessly, telephoned to Denise inviting herself to dinner.

The butler answered. "Yes, her ladyship would be dining in, he would ask." There was a long pause, then an answer. "Her ladyship would be pleased to see Mrs Carteret at eight."

"She might have spoken herself," said Esmé, angrily.

The afternoon dragged wearily. Esmé drove to one of the big shops, ordering new cushions, new coverings, but languidly; she meant to leave the flat and took no real interest in it.

She went early to the Blakeneys. Denise was not dressed. No message came asking her to go to her friend's room. Esmé had to learn that an obligation creates constraint, as the person we owe money to, however generously given, is never a welcome guest.

But Esmé left the pretty drawing-room. Its spaciousness made her envious, she stepped past Denise's room to the upper landings. Here Mrs Stanson was just coming to her supper. A little lightly-breathing thing lay asleep in his cot.

"But, nurse, he's pale, isn't he, thin?" Esmé whispered.

"He caught a cold, Mrs Carteret. Oh, nothing. I feared croup, but it passed. It's a trying month, you see, for tiny children."

Lightly, so softly that the baby never stirred, Esmé stooped to kiss him, stood looking down at the child which ought to have been sleeping in the spare room at the flat.

But he would have been a nuisance there, an inconvenience, she told herself insistently.

Then fear tore at her heart. What if the child should die. "Be good to him," she whispered, slipping a sovereign into Mrs Stanson's hand. "Be good to him, Mrs Stanson."

She got down before Denise did. Felt the want of warmth in her hostess's greeting. Denise was splendidly gowned, gay, merry, looking younger, happier. Sir Cyril's eyes followed his wife, contentment visible in their look.

"My dear Esmé, delighted, of course. When you are alone always come here. We've only a four for bridge—Susie and her husband. You can cut in."

"I'll look on." Esmé felt that she was not wanted, she was odd man out. She flushed unhappily.

Denise was full of plans, each one including Cyril now. She talked lightly of that boy Jerry. She was completely the happy wife, confident in her position.

"And the boy. He's had a cold," Esmé said.

"A cold has he? I think I heard him sniff?"

"Yes, he's had a cold," Sir Cyril said. "He was quite feverish. Denise is not a nursery bird, I fear."

"And you've been dining off gold plate at the Holbrooks, Esmé. I wouldn't go. Cyril and I went for a few last days with the Quorn. Cyril bought me such a lovely mare, all quality. Ah, here is Sue." Lady Susan Almorni was not a friend of Esmé's. Denise seemed to be leaving her smart friends, to be settling among the duller, greater people.

"Bertie will be home to-morrow. I want to leave the flat, to come more west. It's poky, horribly stuffy. If—we could afford to." Esmé crumbled her toast, looked almost sullenly at Denise.

"But could you? And it's such a dear little flat. Could you afford it, Esmé dear? You are so comfy there."

The butler brought in the evening papers. Before they settled to play bridge Sir Cyril opened them.

"Why, Mrs Carteret," he said, "this is awful about your cousins surely. The two Carteret boys have both been killed in a motor accident. It makes Bertie heir, I suppose, but what a tragedy."

Esmé caught at the paper and read it feverishly. "To the title," she said. "It's entailed. Hugh Carteret can leave his money as he chooses—unless we have children." But she knew what a difference it must make.

"You'll have to follow my example and have an heir now," laughed Denise. "To make it all certain. Eh, Esmé?"

Esmé sat with the paper in her hands and did not answer.