of his outburst was, as usual, trivial, and perhaps – far as that was from being invariably the case – afforded him some shadow of excuse. Neither did Chat help matters. He had sent up from Hatcham Ford a bunch of splendid yellow roses, and, when he came to dinner the same evening, he naturally expected to see them on the table. "Where are my roses?" he asked abruptly, when we were half-way through dinner.
"I love them – they're beautiful – but they didn't suit my frock to-night," said Jenny, smiling. She would have managed the matter all right if she had been let alone, but Chat must needs put her oar in.
"They'll look splendid on the table to-morrow night," she remarked – as though she were saying something soothing and tactful.
"Oh, you've got a dinner-party to-morrow?" he asked – still calm, but growing dangerous.
"Nobody you'd care about," Jenny assured him; she had given Chat a look which immediately produced symptoms of flutters.
"Who's coming?"
"Oh, only Lord Fillingford and Lady Sarah, the Wares, the Rector, the Aspenicks, and one or two more."
"H'm. My roses are good enough for that lot, but I'm not, eh?"
Jenny's hand was forced; Chat had undermined her position. Not even for the sake of policy did she love to do an unhandsome thing – still less to be found out in doing one. To use the roses and slight the donor would not be handsome. She knew Aspenick's objection to meeting Octon, but probably she thought that she could keep Aspenick in order.
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