“I’m not afraid of that, if you’re not.”

“Ah, there’s someone.”

An inside door opened and closed again, then they heard a heavy footstep coming, which paused for a moment, whereat a flood of colour streamed through a stained glass fanlight over the door.

“That’s Mr. Stratton,” announced Nellie.

Next moment the door at which they stood was opened by a bearded man, wearing loose grey coat and slippers.

“Hello, Nellie!” exclaimed this possible conspirator, opening the door wide.  “Connie said it was your ring.  Come straight in, both of you.  Good evening, sir.  Nellie’s friends are our friends and we’ve heard so much of Ned Hawkins that we seem to have known you a long while.”  He held out his hand and shook Ned’s warmly, giving a strong, clinging, friendly grip, not waiting for any introduction.  “Of course, this is Mr. Hawkins, Nellie?” he enquired, seriously, turning to that young woman, whose hands he took in both of his while looking quizzingly from Ned to her and back to Ned again.

“Yes, of course,” she answered, laughing.  Ned laughed.  The possible conspirator laughed as he answered, dropping her hands and turning to shut the door.

“Well, it mightn’t have been.  By the way, Nellie, you must have sent an astral warning that you were coming along.  We were just talking about you.”

* * * * *

They had been discussing Nellie in the Stratton circle, as our best friends will when we are so fortunate as to interest them.

In the pretty sitting-room that overlooked the rippling water, Mrs. Stratton perched on the music stool, was giving, amid many interjections, an animated account of the opera:  a dark-haired, grey-eyed, full-lipped woman of 30 or so, with decidedly large nose and broad rounded forehead, somewhat under the medium height apparently but pleasingly plump as her evening dress disclosed.  She talked rapidly, in a sweet expressive voice that had a strange charm.  Her audience consisted of an ugly little man, with greyish hair, who stood at a bookcase in the corner and made his remarks over his shoulder; a gloomy young man, who sat in a reclining chair, with his arm hanging listlessly by his side; and a tall dark-moustached handsome man, broadly built, who sat on the edge of a table smoking a wooden pipe, and who, from his observations, had evidently accompanied her home from the theatre after the second act.  There was also her husband, who leant over her, his back turned to the others, unhooking her fur-edged opera cloak, a tall fair brown bearded man, evidently the elder by some years, whose blue eyes were half hidden beneath a strongly projected forehead.  He fumbled with the hooks of the cloak, passing his hands beneath it, smiling slyly at her the while.  She, flushing like a girl at the touch, talked away while pressing her knee responsively against his.  It was a little love scene being enacted of which the others were all unconscious unless for a general impression that this long-married couple were as foolishly in love as ever and indulged still in all the mild raptures of lovers.