“Very well.  I promise!”

“Oh, thank you!  Thank you.”

The door from the hall was opened upon that cry of gratitude and Millie Splay looked in.

“Oh, there you are.”  A movement of chairs became audible in the dining-room.  “And those men are still sitting over their miserable cigars.”

“They are coming,” said Joan, and the next moment the dining-room door was thrown open and Sir Chichester with his guests trooped out from it.

“Now then, you girls, we ought to be off,” he cried as if he had been waiting with his coat on for half an hour.  “This is none of your London dances.  We are in the country.  You won’t any of you get any partners if you don’t hurry.”

“Well, I like that!” returned Millie Splay.  “Here we all are, absolutely waiting for you!”

Mr. Albany Todd approached Joan.

“You will keep a dance for me?”

“Of course.  The third before supper,” answered Joan.

Already Sir Chichester was putting on his coat in the hall.

“Come on!  Come on!” he cried impatiently, and then in quite another tone, “Oh!”

The evening papers had arrived late that evening.  They now lay neatly folded on the hall table.  Sir Chichester pounced upon them.  The throbbing motor-cars at the door, the gay figures of his guests were all forgotten.  He plumped down upon a couch.

“There!” cried Millie Splay in despair.  “Now we can all sit down for half an hour.”

“Nonsense, my dear, nonsense!  I just want to see whether there is any report of my little speech at the Flower Show yesterday.”  He turned over the leaves.  “Not a word apparently, here!  And yet it was an occasion of some importance.  I can’t understand these fellows.”

He tossed the paper aside and took up another.  “Just a second, dear!”

Millie Splay looked around at her guests with much the same expression of helpless wonderment which was so often to be seen on the face of Dennis Brown, when Miranda went racing.

“It’s the limit!” she declared.

There were two, however, of the party, who were not at all distressed by Sir Chichester’s procrastination.  When the others streamed into the hall, Joan lingered behind, sedulously buttoning her gloves which were buttoned before; and Harry Luttrell returned to assist her.  The door was three-quarters closed.  From the hall no one could see them.

“You are going to dance with me in the passage,” he said.

Joan smiled at him and nodded.  Now that Miranda had given way, Joan’s spirits had revived.  The colour was bright in her cheeks, her eyes were tender.

“Yes, but not at once.”

“Why?”

“I’ll finish my duty dances first,” said Joan in a low voice.  She did not take her eyes from his face.  She let him read, she meant him to read, in her eyes what lay so close at her heart.  Harry Luttrell read without an error, the print was so large, the type so clear.  He took a step nearer to her.