“Joan!” he whispered; and at this, his first use of her Christian name, her face flowered like a rose.

“Thank you!” she said softly.  “Oh, thank you!”

Harry Luttrell looked over his shoulder.  They had the room to themselves, so long as they did not raise their voices.

“Joan,” he began with a little falter in his voice.  Could he have pleaded better in a thousand fine speeches, he who had seen his men wither about him on the Somme, than by that little timorous quaver in his voice?  “Joan, I have something to ask of you to-night.  I meant to ask it during a dance, when you couldn’t run away.  But I am going to ask it now.”

Joan drew back sharply.

“No!  Please wait!” and as she saw his face cloud, she hurried on.  “Oh, don’t be hurt!  You misunderstand.  How you misunderstand!  Take me in to supper to-night, will you?  And then you shall talk to me, and I’ll listen.”  Her voice rose like clear sweet music in a lilt of joy.  “I’ll listen with all my heart, my hands openly in yours if you will, so that all may see and know my pride!”

“Joan!” he whispered.

“But not now!  Not till then!”

Harry Luttrell did not consider what scruple in the girl’s conscience held him off.  The delay did not trouble him at all.  She stood before him, radiant in her beauty, her happiness like an aura about her.

“Joan,” he whispered again, and—­how it happened who shall say?—­in a second she was within his arms, her heart throbbing against his; her hands stole about his shoulders; their lips were pressed together.

“Harry!  Oh, Harry!” she murmured.  Then very gently she pushed him from her.  She shook her head with a wistful little smile.

“I didn’t mean you to do that,” she said in self-reproach, “until after supper.”

In the hall Sir Chichester threw down the last of the newspapers in a rage.  “Not a word!  Not one single miserable little word!  I don’t ask much, goodness knows, but——­” and his voice went up in an angry incredulity.  “Not one word!  And I thought the Harpoon was such a good paper too!”

Sir Chichester sprang to his feet.  He glanced at his guests.  He turned upon his wife.

“God bless my soul, Millie, what are we waiting for?  I’ll tell you girls what it is.  Unless we get off at once, we had better not go at all.  Where’s Joan?  Where’s Luttrell?”

“Here we are!” cried Luttrell from the library, and in a lower tone to Joan, he observed, “What a bore people are to be sure, aren’t they?”

The guilty couple emerged into the hall.  Sir Chichester surveyed them with severity.

“I don’t know whether you have heard about it, Luttrell, but there’s a ball to-night at Harrel, and we all rather thought of going to it,” he remarked with crushing sarcasm.

“I am quite ready, sir,” replied Harry humbly.  Sir Chichester was mollified.

“Very well then.  We’ll go.”