'I'll lend you my racquet. You said you'd like to play with me.'
'So I should another time; but now come and walk round the garden with me.'
'I am so sorry I can't; I have promised to play in this set; it will look so rude if I leave my guests.'
'Never mind being rude; it won't matter for once. Do this for me.'
Mildred looked up wistfully; then she said:
'Ethel and Mary, do you play Mr. Bates and Miss Shield. I will play in the next set; I am a little tired.'
The girls looked round knowingly, and Mildred and Alfred Stanby walked towards the conservatories.
XXI.
Mildred sat in the long drawing-room writing. Not at the large writing-table in front of the window, but at an old English writing- desk, which had been moved from the corner where it had stood for generations. She bent over the little table. The paper-shaded lamp shed a soft and mellow light upon her vaporous hair, whitening the square white hands, till they seemed to be part of the writing paper.
Once or twice she stopped writing and dashed tears from her eyes with a quick and passionate gesture; and amid the rich shadows and the lines of light floating up the tall red curtains, the soft Carlo Dolce-like picture of the weary and weeping girl was impressive and beautiful.