"It rests with you. And you must decide now, while there's still time to go back and get a cab at the station."

"We were starting rather well," I pointed out.

"That's just what you weren't doing," she said with a determined shake of the head. "If we're going to be friends, you must promise never to make remarks like that. You don't mean them, and I don't like them.

Will you promise?"

"The flesh is weak," I protested.

"Am I worth a little promise like that?"

"Lord! yes," I said. "But I always break my promises."

"You mustn't break this one. It's bad enough with Abana and Pharpar, as you call them. You know you're really--you won't mind my saying it?--you're old enough...."

"Age only makes me more susceptible," I lamented. The statement was perfectly true and I have suffered much mental disquiet on the subject. So far as I can see, my declining years will be one long riot of senile infidelity.

"I don't mind that," said Sylvia with a close-lipped smile; "but I don't want pretty speeches." She jumped down from the stile and stood facing me, with her clear brown eyes looking straight into mine.

"You're not in love with me, are you?"

I hesitated for a fraction of time, as any man would; but her foot tapped the ground with impatience.

"Don't be absurd!" she exclaimed, "you know you're not; you've known me five minutes. Well,"--her voice suddenly lost any asperity it may have contained, and she laid her hand almost humbly on my arm--"please don't behave as if you were. I hate it, and hate it, and hate it, till I can hardly contain myself. But I should like you as a friend. You've knocked about the world, you're seasoned----"

I held out my hand to seal the bargain.

"I was horribly rude just now!" she exclaimed with sudden penitence.

"I was afraid you were going to be like all the rest."

"Tell me what's expected of me," I begged.

"Nothing. I just want to be friends. You'll find I'm worth it," she added with a flash of pride.

"I think I saw that the moment we met."

"I wonder."

It was some time before I did full justice to Sylvia, some time before I appreciated the pathetic loneliness of her existence. For twenty years she and Philip had been staunch allies. His triumphs and troubles had been carried home from school to be discussed and shared with his sister; on the first night of every holiday the pair of them had religiously taken themselves out to dinner and a theatre, and Sylvia had been in attendance at every important match in which he was taking part, and every speech day at which he was presented with a prize. The tradition was carried on at Oxford, and had only come to an end when Philip entered public life and won his way into the House of Commons. Their confidences had then grown gradually less frequent, and Sylvia, whose one cry--like Kundry's--had ever been, "Let me serve,"

found herself without the opportunity of service. The Roden household, when I first entered it, was curiously unsympathetic; she was without an ally; there was much affection and woefully little understanding.

Her father never took counsel with the women of his family, Philip had slipped away, and neither Robin nor Michael was old enough to take his place. With her vague, ill-defined craving to be of account in the world, it was small wonder if she felt herself unfriended and her devotional overtures rejected. Had her father been any one else, I am convinced that Sylvia would have joined Joyce Davenant and sought an outlet for her activities in militancy.

"You're remarkably refreshing, Sylvia," I said. She raised her eyebrows at the name. "Oh, well," I went on, "if we're going to be friends.... Besides, it's a very pretty name."

"I hate it!" she exclaimed. "Sylvia Forstead Mornington Roden. I hate them all!"

"Were you called after Lady Forstead?" I asked.

"Yes. Did you know her?"

I shook my head. Of course I had heard of her and the money left by her husband, who had chanced to own the land on which Renton came afterwards to be built. Most of that money, I learned later, was reposing in trust till Sylvia was twenty-five.

"Your taste in godmothers is commendable," I remarked.

"You think so?" she asked without conviction.

It is not good for a young girl to be burdened with great possessions; they distort her outlook on life. I wondered to what extent Sylvia was being troubled in anticipation, but the wonder was idle: nature had troubled her with sufficient good looks to make mercenary admirers superfluous.

"Most people...." I began, but stopped as she came to a sudden standstill.

"I _say_, we forgot all about Mr. Aintree!" she exclaimed.

"He didn't come," I reassured her.

"Oh, Phil said perhaps he mightn't. I gather he usually does accept invitations and not turn up. I hate people who can't be reasonably polite."

"He usually refuses the invitation," I said in the Seraph's defence.

"Why?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Shyness, I suppose."

"I hate shy people."

"You must ask him."

"I don't know him. What's he like?"

"Oh, I thought you did. He...." I paused and tried to think how the Seraph should be described; it was not easy. "Medium height," I ventured at last, "fair hair, rather a white face; curious, rather haunting dark eyes. Middle twenties, but usually looks younger. Very nervous and overwrought, frightfully shy...."

"Sounds like a degenerate poet."

"He's had a good deal of trouble," I added. "Be kind to him, Sylvia.

Life's a long agony to him when he's with strangers."

"I hate shy people," she repeated. "It's so silly to be awkward."

"He's not awkward. Incidentally, what a number of things you find time to hate!"

"I know. I'm composed entirely of hates and bad tempers. And I hate myself more than anybody else."

"Why?"

"Because I don't understand myself," she answered, "and I can't control myself."

On arriving at the house I was introduced to my hostess. Lady Roden was a colourless woman who had sunk to a secondary position in the household. This was perhaps not surprising in a family that contained Arthur as the nominal head, and Philip, Sylvia, Robin, and Michael as Mayors of the Palace. What she lacked in authority was made up in prestige. On no single day of her life of fifty years did she forget that she was a Rutlandshire Mornington. I fear I have little respect for Morningtons--or any other pre-Conquest families--whether they come from Rutlandshire or any other part of the globe. Such inborn reverence as I in common with all other Englishmen may ever have possessed has been starved by many years absence abroad. At Brandon Court I found the sentiment flourishing hardily: Lady Roden dug for pedigrees as a dog scratches for a bone. "You are a brother of the Judge?" she said when we met. "Then--let me see--your sister-in-law was a Hylton."

I had expected to find the atmosphere oppressive with Front Bench politics, but the influence of Pat Culling was salutary. Discussion quailed before his powers of illustration, and the study of "The Rt.