him, he was rude to them. To her own daughter Nina, seventeen
years old, his attitude was almost paternal; he ignored Ward as if
their friendship had never been. Toward Richard Carter, who was
pleasantly hospitable toward the lad, he showed an icy and
trembling politeness.

Isabelle saw now that she had made a mistake. She should have
killed this affair at the very beginning. Tony was not like the
older men, willing to play the game with just a little scorching
of fingers. Appearances meant nothing to Tony, and she had let the
play go too far now to convince him that she did not return
something of his feeling.

Indeed, to her own amazement, his fire kindled fire in return.
When he was not at Crownlands she could laugh at him, even though
her thoughts were full of him. But when he was there, life to her
was more radiant, more full, more glowing with colour and
fragrance. The books he touched, the chair he had at breakfast,
his young, lithe body in its golfing knickerbockers, or his sleek
black head above the dull black of evening wear, haunted her
oddly. He troubled her, but she had neither quite the power nor
quite the desire to banish him.

She looked down at him now, content to be alone with her and at
her feet, and a hundred mixed emotions stirred her. His feeling
for her was not only pitiable and absurd in him, but it was
rapidly reaching the point when it would make her absurd and
pitiable, too. Nina, instinctively scenting the affair, had
already expressed herself as "hating that idiot"; Ward had
scowled, of late, at the mere mention of Tony's name. Even her