"None."

Violet Vane's eyebrows went up in derision. "There is no Sahara in Lorneshire, and you have been here for three weeks--or is it a month?"

"To be accurate, a month and four days."

"Dear me! what a long time it takes to put up curtains."

"Very. I am sure those five minutes are over, Violet. Won't you come and sing for us?"

"How--how dreadfully dull you must have been, Paul!"

"Dreadfully. Blanche! will you try and persuade Mrs. Vane to sing to us--she is obdurate with me."

Lady George, delighted at her brother's virtue in seeking to break up a tête-a-tête, was urgent in her appeals, and Mrs. Vane passed to the piano, airily.

"There is music here," cried Lord George, officiously producing a book from the canterbury. Mrs. Vane took it with a gracious smile.

"Bach! Corelli! This is yours, I suppose, Miss Woodward?"