Nan shuddered inwardly.  Of course she knew one always did ultimately meet one’s future mother-in-law, but the prompt and dutiful way in which Roger brought out his suggestion seemed like a sentence culled from some Early Victorian book.  Certainly it was altogether alien to Nan’s ultra-modern, semi-Bohemian notions.

“Suppose you come to lunch to-morrow?  I should like you to meet her as soon as possible.”

There was something just the least bit didactic in the latter part of the sentence, a hint of the proprietary note.  Nan recoiled from it instinctively.

“No, not to-morrow,” she exclaimed hastily.  “I’m going over to see Aunt Eliza—­Mrs. McBain, you know—­and I can’t put it off.  I haven’t been near her for a fortnight, and she’ll he awfully offended if I don’t go.”

“Then it must be Tuesday,” said Roger, with an air of making a concession.

Nan felt that nothing could save her from Tuesday, and agreed meekly.  At the same moment, to her unspeakable relief, Kitty looked into the room to enquire gaily: 

“Are you two still saying good-bye?”

Trenby rose reluctantly.

“No.  We were just making arrangements about Nan’s coming to the Hall to meet my mother.  We’ve fixed it all up, so I must be off now.”

It was with a curious sense of freedom regained that Nan watched the lights of Roger’s car speed down the drive.

At least she was her own mistress again till Tuesday!

* * * * * *

Although Nan had conferred the brevet rank of aunt upon Eliza McBain, the latter was in reality only the sister of an uncle by marriage and no blood relation—­a dispensation for which, at not infrequent intervals of Nan’s career, Mrs. McBain had been led to thank the Almighty effusively.  Born and reared in the uncompromising tenets of Scotch Presbyterianism, her attitude towards Nan was one of rigid disapproval—­a disapproval that warred somewhat pathetically against the affection with which the girl’s essential lovableness inspired her.  For there was no gainsaying the charm of the Davenant women!  But Eliza still remembered very clearly the sense of shocked dismay which, years ago, had overwhelmed her righteous soul on learning that her only brother, Andrew McDermot, had become engaged to one of the beautiful Davenant sisters.

In those days the insane extravagances and lawlessness of the Davenant family had become proverbial.  There had been only three of them left to carry on the wild tradition—­Timothy, Nan’s father, who feared neither man nor devil, but could wile a bird off a tree or a woman’s heart from her keeping, and his two sisters, whose beauty had broken more hearts than their kindness could ever mend.  And not one of the three had escaped the temperamental heritage which Angele de Varincourt had grafted on to a parent stem of dare-devil, reckless English growth.