She slipped her arm round his neck on the instant.  “I’m not, dear Piers.  I’m not angry.  But we shouldn’t want to go away and leave you alone.  We shouldn’t really.”

He laughed again, carelessly, without effort.  “No, but you’d get on all right without me.  You and Avery are such pals.  What do you say to it, Avery?  Isn’t it a good idea?”

“I think perhaps it is,” she said slowly, her voice very low.

He straightened himself, and looked at her, and again that vivid, painful blush covered her face and neck as though a flame had scorched her.  She did not meet his eyes.

“Very well then.  It’s settled,” he said jauntily.  “Now let’s go and have some dinner!”

He kept up his light attitude throughout the meal, save that once he raised his wine-glass mockingly to the woman on the wall.  But his mood was elusive.  Avery felt it.  It was as if he played a juggling game on the edge of the pit of destruction, and she watched him with a leaden heart.

She rose from the table earlier than usual, for the atmosphere of the dining-room oppressed her almost unbearably.  It was a night of heavy stillness.

“You ought to go to bed, dear,” she said to Jeanie.

“Oh, must I?” said Jeanie wistfully.  “I never sleep much on these hot nights.  One can’t breath so well lying down.”

Avery looked at her with quick anxiety, but she had turned to Piers and was leaning against him with a gentle coaxing air.

“Please, dear Piers, would it tire you to play to us?” she begged.

He looked down at her for a moment as if he would refuse; then very gently he laid his hand on her head, pressing back the heavy, clustering hair from her forehead to look into her soft eyes.

“What do you want me to play?” he said.

She made a wide gesture of the hands and let them fall.  “Something big,” she said.  “Something to take to bed with us and give us happy dreams.”

His lips—­those mobile, sensitive lips—­curved in a smile that made Avery avert her eyes with a sudden hot pang.  He released Jeanie, and turned away to the door.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.  “You had better go into the garden—­you and Avery.”

They went, though Jeanie looked as if she would have preferred to accompany him to the music-room.  It was little cooler on the terrace than in the house.  The heat brooded over all, dense, black, threatening.

“I hope it will rain soon,” said Jeanie, drawing her chair close to Avery’s.

“There will be a storm when it does,” Avery said.

“I like storms, don’t you?” said Jeanie.

Avery shook her head.  “No, dear.”

She was listening in tense expectancy, waiting with a dread that was almost insupportable for the music that Piers was about to make.  They were close to the open French window of the music-room, but there was no light within.  Piers was evidently sitting there silent in the darkness.  Her pulses were beating violently.  Why did he sit so still?  Why was there no sound?