Nick hesitated momentarily.  “He spoke in confidence,” he said then.

“You won’t tell me?” she asked quickly.

“Sorry; I can’t,” said Nick.

Olga sat up.  A sudden idea had begun to illumine her brain.  “Nick tell me this—­anyhow!  Did Violet’s mother do—­something dreadful?”

“Look here, Olga mia!” said Nick severely.  “I know you can’t help being a woman, but you’re not to look at your neighbour’s cards.  It’s against the rules.”

She laughed a little.  “Forgive me, Nick!  I suppose supper is ready.  I’ll come down.”

They went down together, to find Violet thrumming her mandolin in the twilight for the benefit of Max who was stretched at full length on the drawing-room sofa.  The three boys were scudding about the garden like puppies.

As Olga and Nick entered, Violet looked up from her instrument.  “I’m wondering if Sir Kersley would like to adopt me as well as Max.  Do you think he would?”

“Exceedingly doubtful,” said Max, rising.

“Why?”

“You would take up too much of his valuable time,” he rejoined.  “A man has to think of that, you know.”

“Only horrid sordid men like you!” she retorted.

He uttered his dry laugh.  “A professional man must think of his career.”

She tossed her head.  “Is that your creed—­that there is no time for a woman in a professional man’s life?”

Max laughed again.  “She mustn’t be too beautiful, anyhow.”

She sprang suddenly to her feet.  The mandolin jarred and jangled upon the ground.  “Are you listening, Allegro?” she said, and through her deep voice there ran a sinister note that seemed to mingle, oddly vibrant, with the echoing strings of the instrument.  “A professional man can admit only a plain woman into his life.  The other kind is too distracting, since he must think of his career.”

Nick cut in upon the words with the suddenness of a sabre-thrust.  “Oh, we all say that till we meet the right woman, and then, be she lovely or hideous, the career bobs under like a float and ceases to count.”

Max grunted.  “Does it?  Well, you ought to know.”

“Let’s go and have supper,” said Olga, and turned from the room.

Violet stooped to pick up her mandolin.  Nick lingered to summon the boys.  Max entered the dining-room in Olga’s wake.

“Give me five minutes in the surgery presently,” he said as he did so.

She glanced round at him sharply.  “Why?”

He raised his brows.  “Because I ask you to.”  He halted at the sideboard to cut some bread.  “Going to refuse?” he asked.

“No,” said Olga.

“Thanks!”

He went on with his cutting with the utmost serenity, and almost immediately they were joined by the rest of the party.

It was a somewhat rowdy meal.  Violet appeared to be in one of her wildest moods.  Her eyes shone like stars, and her merriment rippled forth continuously like a running stream.  The boys were uproarious, and Nick was as one of them.  In the midst of the fun and laughter, Olga sat rather silent.  Max, drily humorous, took his customary somewhat supercilious share in the general conversation, but he made no attempt to draw her into it.  She almost wished he would do so, for she felt as if he purposely held aloof from her.