and got all you could out of both of them, and kept on like that for about two months – '
'Oh, that's how the land lies, is it?'
'Don't you think it possible you might be in a difficulty some day?'
'But, good heavens, that's not the sort of thing to bring to me!'
'Apparently Mrs. Trevalla thinks differently,' laughed Peggy. 'At least I can't think of any other difficulty she's likely to be in.'
Airey was obviously disturbed and displeased.
'If what you say is true,' he observed, 'she can't be a good sort of woman.'
'I suppose not.' Peggy's admission sounded rather reluctant.
'Who are the two men?'
'Lord Mervyn and Beaufort Chance.'
'M.P.'s, aren't they?'
'Among other things, Airey. Well, you can't tell her not to come, can you? After that sort of general invitation, you know.' Peggy's tone was satirical; she had rather strong views as to the way in which men made fools of themselves over women – or sometimes said she had.
'I was an old friend of her husband's.'
'Oh, you've nothing to apologise for. When does she want to come?'
'To-morrow. I say, oughtn't I to offer to go and call on her?'
'She'd think that very dull in comparison,' Peggy assured him. 'Let her come and sob out her trouble here.'
'You appear to be taking the matter in a flippant spirit, Peggy.'
'I don't think I'm going to be particularly sorry if Mrs. Trevalla is in a bit of a scrape.'
'You young women are so moral.'
'I don't care,' said Peggy defiantly.
'Women have an extraordinary gift for disliking one another on sight,' mused Airey in an injured voice.
'You seem to have liked Mrs. Trevalla a good deal on sight.'
'She looked so sad, so solitary, a mere girl in her widow's weeds.' His tone grew compassionate, almost tender, as he recalled the forlorn figure which had timidly stolen into the dining-room of the Paris hotel.
'You'll find her a little bit changed perhaps,' Peggy suggested with a suppressed malice that found pleasure in anticipating his feelings.
'Oh, well, she must come anyhow, I suppose.'
'Yes, let her come, Airey. It does these people good to see how the poor live.'
Airey laughed, but not very heartily. However, it was well understood that everybody in their circle was very poor, and Peggy felt no qualms about referring to the fact.
'I shall come the next day and hear all about the interview. Fancy these interesting things happening to you! Because, you know, she's rather famous. Mrs. Bonfill has taken her up, and the Glentorlys are devoted to her, and Lady Blixworth has said some of her best things about her. She'll bring you into touch with fashion.'
'Hang fashion!' said Airey. 'I wonder what her difficulty is.' He seemed quite preoccupied with the idea of Mrs. Trevalla's difficulty.
'I see you're going to be very romantic indeed,' laughed Peggy Ryle.
His eyes dwelt on her for a moment, and a very friendly expression filled them.
'Don't you get into any difficulties?' he said.
'There's never but one with me,' she laughed; 'and that doesn't hurt, Airey.'
There was a loud and cheerful knock on the door.
'Visitors! When people come, how do you account for me?'
'I say nothing. I believe you're taken for my daughter.'
'Not since you trimmed your beard! Well, it doesn't matter, does it? Let him in.'
The visitor proved to be nobody to whom Peggy needed to be accounted for; he was Tommy Trent, the smart, trim young man who had danced with her at Mrs. Bonfill's party.
'You here again!' he exclaimed in tones of grave censure, as he laid down his hat on the top of the red-leather book on the little table. He blew on the book first, to make sure it was not dusty.
Peggy smiled, and Airey relit his pipe. Tommy walked across and looked at the débris of the loaf. He shook his head when Peggy offered him tea.
A sudden idea seemed to occur to him.
'I'm awfully glad to find you here,' he remarked to her. 'It saves me going up to your place, as I meant. I've got some people dining to-night, and one of them's failed. I wonder if you'd come? I know it's a bore coming again so soon, but – '
'I haven't been since Saturday.'
'But it would get me out of a hole.' He spoke in humble entreaty.
'I'd come directly, but I'm engaged.'
Tommy looked at her sorrowfully, and, it must be added, sceptically.
'Engaged to dinner and supper,' averred Peggy with emphasis as she pulled her hat straight and put on her gloves.
'You wouldn't even look in between the two and – and have an ice with us?'
'I really can't eat three meals in one evening, Tommy.'
'Oh, chuck one of them. You might, for once!'
'Impossible! I'm dining with my oldest friend,' smiled Peggy. 'I simply can't.' She turned to Airey, giving him her hand with a laugh. 'I like you best, because you just let me – '
Both words and laughter died away; she stopped abruptly, looking from one man to the other. There was something in their faces that arrested her words and her merriment. She could not analyse what it was, but she saw that she had made both of them uncomfortable. They had guessed what she was going to say; it would have been painful to one of them, and the other knew it. But whom had she wounded – Tommy by implying that his hospitality was importunate and his kindness clumsy, or Airey by a renewed reference to his poverty as shown in the absence of pressing invitations from him? She could not tell; but a constraint had fallen on them both. She cut her farewell short and went away, vaguely vexed and penitent for an offence which she perceived but did not understand.
The two men stood listening a moment to her light footfall on the stairs.
'It's all a lie, you know,' said Tommy. 'She isn't engaged to dinner or to supper either. It's beastly, that's what it is.'
'Yours was all a lie too, I suppose?' Airey spoke in a dull hard voice.
'Of course it was, but I could have beaten somebody up in time, or said they'd caught influenza, or been given a box at the opera, or something.'
Airey sat down by the fireplace, his chin sunk on his necktie. He seemed unhappy and rather ashamed. Tommy glanced at him with a puzzled look, shook his head, and then broke into a smile – as though, in the end, the only thing for it was to be amused. Then he drew a long envelope from his pocket.
'I've
