aunt of his would be only too glad to ferret out anything against you."
"She can't!" Violet said, chin in air.
"No, I've seen to that," her mother retorted. "But you would have made a fool of yourself over Ronald Mills, if I hadn't stopped you."
"That's past," Violet said sullenly, picking up a paper from the table beside her.
"To go back, now, to the pendant," Mrs. Finch continued. "If I ever catch you trying games of that kind again before you're safely married to Arthur, you'll be sorry for yourself!" Again that look of latent ferocity swept up for a second, glowed like a red danger signal, and then dropped out of sight.
"Oh, all right!" Violet said sullenly. And then in a tone of intense surprise: "But what's my name doing here, on this paper?"
Mrs. Finch would have snatched it from her, but in physical strength Violet was her mother's superior.
"Why, it's something to do with my death!" She stared blankly at the paper in her hands.
"Oh, that!" Mrs. Finch said casually. "You knew, months ago, that I was going to sell the Reversion to the thousand your father left you a life interest in, which I bought from you last year. Well, I'm selling it to Gray." She and Violet always referred to her present husband by his surname. "For I must scrape every possible farthing together just now. What are you fussing about?"
"I'm not fussing—I'm asking." Violet laid the paper down again as she spoke. "What a funny thing to be doing to-night!"
"My affairs come up for hearing in the Bankruptcy Court to-morrow," her mother replied with really amazing indifference. "And I want to get rid of all I can to Gray first." She did not add that that was precisely why she had married again. Violet knew as much. So did Henry Gray.
"Well, it's not likely to do Gray much good," Violet laughed. After all, she was too well satisfied to-night to be vexed for long. "I feel as though I should live for another century." And before going back to the ballroom she paused to adjust the pearls afresh.
"They're to be mine," her mother said with a covetous look at their lustre.
"No, they're to be heirlooms," Arthur says.
"That's why he doesn't give them outright to me," Violet grumbled.
"I'll have a talk with him about them. 'Heirlooms,' indeed!" Mrs. Finch snorted.
"You'll find out that there's a stone wall in Arthur that you can't always climb over, mother. Even I can't," warned Violet as she opened the door again and returned to the dancing.
Over and over she fingered the superb pearls around her throat. She lifted her dark head still more proudly, and she had an arrogant carriage at all times. There were plenty of young women in the room, many of them prettier, most of them better born. But it was she, Violet Finch, who had captured the rich prize, Arthur Walsh.
Take Ann Lovelace, for instance, floating by at that minute in one of the newest dances. She made you feel as though your smartest clothes came from Woolworth's, yet she hadn't been able to get Arthur away, though she had tried hard enough.
Ann raised her eyes as she was passing, and paused a moment. They were light grey eyes, very clear and tranquil.
"How well you're looking to-night, Violet," she said kindly. "Of course, those exquisite pearls are a joy in themselves, but it isn't only the pearls, is it?" she murmured with a smile of comprehension.
Ann had a heart-shaped face, beautifully featured, and framed in light golden hair. She was a niece of the Duchess of Axminster—a favourite niece, it was said. She looked the part. Slender, witty, always charmingly dressed—she had an air of fragile grace, every glimpse of which Violet detested because it made her feel like a farmer's daughter in comparison. And she had an uneasy doubt as to what lay behind that appearance of friendliness which Ann had shown her since their meeting at Friars Halt a fortnight before.
Kitty Walsh could have told her, but Kitty was no mischief maker. She was, indeed, one of the very few people in the room that evening who thought that her cousin was not making a bad match. For Kitty rather liked Violet, though the liking did not extend to Violet's mother—nor to Ronald Mills, the young man who helped Mrs. Finch run the night-clubs that had once been so incredibly profitable to her.
"Cleaned everybody out?" Kitty asked her uncle as he suddenly appeared beside her.
Colonel Walsh was known to be a formidable bridge player He smiled a little. Kitty could always get that tribute from him. "What are you staying on here for?" he asked genially. "You look as though you belonged in the schoolroom, you know." And he tweaked an end of the ribbon she wore round her long, full silk gown.
"Ah, my looks are deceptive—like Ann's!" she said lightly, and then coloured with vexation. The last words had slipped out.
"How you do dislike Ann!" her uncle teased, But his eyes were a little wistful as he glanced across at Ann's lovely figure in its dress of silver and jade.
"I do," Kitty said frankly. "She never gives herself away; and I hate people who never give themselves away!" She made a little face at him as she changed the subject. "I suppose there's no chance of Aunt Caroline altering her mind and turning up?" she queried as she caught sight of her aunt's intimate friend coming towards them.
Colonel Walsh shook his head. His sister had refused to come. The Colonel regretted the engagement, too. But he was no tyrant, though he had cut his eldest son off with a shilling—or, to be strictly accurate, with a hundred pounds.
"Your aunt fears that Arthur's making a sad mistake. So does Ambrose. So do I. But Arthur's been frank and straightforward about the whole thing, so I don't intend to interfere."
Colonel Walsh and Kitty were close confidantes.
"What's the mother like?" he asked now, glancing that way. "Looks like a respectable elderly governess. But what's she really like?"
"I detested her when I spent those three days with her, you know—when the flat had to have a new system of lighting put in."
The Colonel nodded.
"Do you mean she was offensive?" He bristled.
"Oh, dear, no! On the contrary. She was awfully pleasant to me. But I don't think I've ever disliked any one quite so much without any reason."
"Except Ann!" he chaffed back.
"Ann!" she said under her breath. "Violet Finch mayn't be all you would like Arthur's wife to be," she continued softly, "but she's ever so much better than Ann Lovelace. Ann's selfish. She has a horrid temper. You remember that we were at Bedington together, she and I. Oh, yes, she was 'Head Girl' in her last year. But none the less there were plenty of others who felt just as I did. Ann always intended to be 'Head Girl,' and so, of course, she pulled it off."
"I think your aunt hopes she will still draw Arthur away from Violet Finch."
"Not a chance!" Kitty said at once. "Arthur adores Violet. Absolutely!" There was a something in her young voice that made her uncle look away. It sounded like very far-off, very repressed pain.
"Anyway, those pearls that Ann helped her choose look superb ones," the Colonel said hurriedly. "On loan to-night, I take it, as they're to be his wedding present?"
