And then, unbelievably, Justin was saying,

“Don’t be silly. I came down to see you-at least not you, the Oakleys-in my capacity as chaperon.”

She said, “Oh!” That is the only way it can be written, but it was a sound in which a little spring of laughter bubbled up.

And on that Gregory Porlock intervened.

“Now he’s going to be next to you at dinner, so you must come and meet everyone else. And you must have a cocktail.”

The introductions which followed gave her a lot of impressions, as it were in layers. Mr. Tote red and stout, with eyes like an angry pig. Mr. Masterman, who reminded her of an undertaker though she couldn’t have said why. Mrs. Tote, small and wispy behind a lot of grey satin and diamonds, with her hair screwed up as if she was going to have a bath, and a general resemblance to a kind but anxious mouse. Dorinda wondered why anyone should put on so many diamonds when all they did was to glare and glitter on a skinny neck and make the face above it look about a hundred and fifty.

Miss Masterman hadn’t any diamonds. She wore an old-fashioned black lace dress, quite long in the sleeves and almost high in the neck, where it was fastened by a small pearl brooch. Meeting the dark eyes, Dorinda felt the word “mourning” come into her mind- “She’s in mourning.” But it hadn’t anything to do with the black lace dress. It was the look in the eyes-as if something had been lost and could never be found again.

She had only had time to decide that she disliked Mr. Carroll, when the door opened upon the latest guest. Moira Lane came in with a definite air of having just bought the earth. She wore a velvet picture dress of the colour of a damask rose, and her cheeks matched it. Her extremely beautiful arms were bare to the shoulder, and upon her left wrist she wore Josephine’s diamond and ruby bracelet. After pausing for a moment on the threshold she passed swiftly and lightly to the group by the fire and held out that arched left wrist to Gregory Porlock.

“There, Greg darling! Doesn’t it look nice?”

She turned from him to sweep the whole company with a brilliant glance and said in her lightest, clearest tones,

“It’s a joyous reunion. I lost my lovely bracelet, and Greg has just got it back for me. Quite too marvellous of him! I must never, never lose it again, must I?”

On the last words her eyes came back to Gregory’s face. If it expressed admiration, it was no more than he felt to be her due. In the most public manner possible she was challenging him to claim the bracelet. What he didn’t do now he could certainly never do again. It was a most definite “Speak now, or forever hold your peace!”

As the door opened and the butler appeared to announce that dinner was served, Gregory smiled back at her and said,

“More careful another time, my dear-that’s the motto.”

Chapter XVI

Gregory shepherded them.

“Mrs. Tote, shall we lead the way? No formality, I think. I am afraid our numbers don’t balance, but at an oval table that doesn’t matter so much, does it?”

As they crossed the hall, Justin felt a sharp pinch on the arm. Looking down, he saw Dorinda’s hand withdrawn, her eyes imploring. He fell back a pace and let the rest go by.

“What is it?”

Almost without moving her lips she said,

“He’s the Wicked Uncle.”

“Who is?”

“Mr. Porlock.”

“Nonsense!”

She gave an emphatic nod.

“He is.”

And with that they were at the dining-room door.

When they were in their places Dorinda found herself looking across the length of the table at Gregory and Mrs. Tote. Between her and them on her right were Mr. Masterman, Mrs. Oakley, Mr. Tote, Miss Masterman, Gregory; and on her left Justin, that odd-looking Leonard Carroll, Moira Lane, Martin Oakley, and Mrs. Tote.

Her eyes came back to Moira, laughing with Leonard Carroll. Quite honestly and doggedly she accepted her as something quite out of her own class-a beautiful magical creature dispensing smiles and wit with easy charm and perfect poise. She took her soup soberly, and had so far forgotten Gregory that when Justin said, “Did you mean that?” she had lost the thread and could only give him a blank look.

“What you said just now,” he prompted. “It seems incredible.”

“Sorry-I was thinking of something else. Of course I did.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“Oh, but I am. Quite-quite-quite sure.”

“Then we’d better talk about something else.”

Dorinda looked again at Moira Lane. Leonard Carroll was leaning towards her with his crooked smile. A rapid cut and thrust flashed back and forth between them. She said quite low to Justin,

“How beautiful she is.”

She wondered why he should be amused.

“Decorative creature,” he said. “All the lights on tonight. I wonder why.”

Something in Dorinda’s mind said, “Oh, Justin, they’re for you.” Didn’t he know? She thought he must. But perhaps you didn’t when it was for you… She wondered about that. When you were very, very fond of anyone, did it make you see clearly, or did it make a kind of mist in which you had to grope your way? She thought it might do both these things-not at the same time of course, but first one and then the other. Like with her and Justin-because sometimes she felt that she could see right into his mind and know just what he was thinking, like when he hated her blue dress, but other times she didn’t know at all, like just now about Moira Lane.

She emerged from this train of thought to help herself to an entrée. Justin and Moira were talking across Leonard Carroll. No, he was talking too. They were laughing together. On her right Mr. Masterman was staring at his plate. Mrs. Oakley beyond him had turned to Mr. Tote, to whom she could be heard recounting some instance of Marty’s unusual precocity and intelligence. The words, “And he was only three at the time,” impinged upon Dorinda’s ear. They must have impinged upon Mr. Tote’s ear too, but he gave no sign that they had done so. He had taken a very large helping and was eating his way through it in an impervious manner.

Urged by social duty, Dorinda addressed Mr. Masterman’s profile.

“I do hope it isn’t going to snow-don’t you?”

His full face was even less reassuring than his profile. He looked at Dorinda as if she wasn’t there and said,

“Why?”

“Messy-so perfectly horrid when it thaws. And never enough of it to do anything with.”

She got the profile again. He had taken up a fork and begun upon the entrée, but with the same air of not noticing what it was. Which seemed a terrible waste, because it was frightfully good and very intriguing. Even in the middle of feeling how beautiful Moira was, and what a marvellous wife she would make for Justin, Dorinda couldn’t help wondering what it was made of. The three on her left all laughed again. Justin sat turned away, making no attempt to include her. She couldn’t guess how devoutly he was hoping that she had not heard the joke.

It was at this moment that Linnet Oakley, having finished her anecdote, found herself addressed by Gregory Porlock across Miss Masterman and Mr. Tote. Just what prompted him remains a matter for conjecture. On his right Mrs. Tote was engaged with her other neighbour, Martin Oakley. They appeared to be comparing notes upon the intelligence of infants as exemplified by Marty and her daughter Allie’s child. Gregory had, perhaps, exhausted the flow of conversation which he had been perseveringly directing towards Miss Masterman, and to which she had remained completely unresponsive. He may have been provoked to malice, he may merely have felt that a diversion of some kind was a necessity. Be that as it may, he addressed Linnet by name.

“Mrs. Oakley, I hope you were successful in getting the luminous paint you wanted.”

Her helpless, startled air was noticed then, and remembered later. Mr. Tote noticed it. Woman looked like a frightened rabbit-just about that much brain. Mr. Masterman on her other side would not, perhaps, have been roused to notice anything if it had not been for the fact that her left hand was on the table between them, and that when she started in that senseless way she very nearly had his champagne-glass over. On the other side of the table Mrs. Tote thought Mrs. Oakley very nervous, and Martin Oakley, watching her change colour, wondered whether she wasn’t feeling well.