"Oh, now you needn't be huffy," Nevitt answered, with a
still sweeter smile, showing all those pearly teeth of his to the
greatest advantage. "I didn't mean to put your back up, and I'll
tell you what I'll do for you. I'll heap coals of fire on your
head, you ungrateful man. I'll return good for evil. You shall
have an invitation to Mrs. Holker's garden party on Saturday week
at Chetwood Court, and there you'll be almost sure to meet the
beautiful stranger."

But at that very moment, at Craighton, Tilgate, Mr. Reginald
Clifford, C.M.G., a stiff little withered-up official Briton, half
mummified by long exposure to tropical suns, was sitting in his
drawing-room with Mrs. Clifford, his wife, and discussing--what
subject of all others on earth but the personality of Cyril Waring?

"Well, it was an awkward situation for Elma, of course, I admit,"
he was chirping out cheerfully, with his back turned by pure force
of habit to the empty grate, and his hands crossed behind him.
"I don't deny it was an awkward situation. Still, there's no harm
done, I hope and trust. Elma's happily not a fanciful or foolishly
susceptible sort of girl. She sees it's a case for mere ordinary
gratitude. And gratitude, in my opinion, towards a person in his
position, is sufficiently expressed once for all by letter. There's
no reason on earth she should ever again see or hear any more of
him."

"But girls are so romantic," Mrs. Clifford put in doubtfully, with
an anxious air. She herself was by no means romantic to look at,
being, indeed, a person of a certain age, with a plump, matronly
figure, and very staid of countenance; yet there was something in