‘But,’ he echoes, bending towards her, ’you have not changed your mind, have you?’

‘Yes I have,’ replies Philippa clasping her hands tightly behind her back.

‘Do you mean it?’ he asks in a bewildered tone.

‘Yes,’ this very low.

‘May I ask why you have changed?’ and Dalrymple draws himself up and his voice is cold and studiously polite.  ’Is it money,—­I am not very well off I know, but I did not think you were the kind of girl to mind that?’

’Ah, you see I am different from what you thought, it is a good thing we found it out before it was too late.’

Jimmy looks at her curiously, and then catches her in his arms.  ’Oh my dearest,’ he says, ‘you can’t mean it, you could not be so cruel—­’

For a second Lippa feels she cannot hold out any longer, but it is only for a second, and then freeing herself from his embrace she says slowly and distinctly—­’I mean all I have said.’

‘I must go then,’ says Jimmy, a world of sorrow in his honest brown eyes.

‘Yes,’ she replies, not daring to look up till she hears the door shut behind him, and then she realises all she has done:  sent away the man she loves, the one man who is ‘her world of all the men’; sent him away thinking she is cruel and mercenary.  She chokes back the tears that start to her eyes; the others must not know, must not even suspect, but oh the aching at her heart.

It goes on raining steadily all day, and every one is dull and depressed, even Chubby.  Dalrymple suddenly discovers that it is absolutely necessary for him to be back at the barracks as soon as possible, and bidding farewell, decamps.

Lady Anne, despite the weather, tramps off to the village to preside at a sewing-class.  Philippa is forbidden by Mabel to put her nose out of doors, who then retires to Lady Dadford’s private boudoir where she spends the afternoon.

‘What shall we do?’ asks Lord Helmdon, gazing helplessly round on the remaining guests.  ‘Miss Seaton, suggest something, do!’

‘I can’t think of anything,’ answers Lippa, longing for some distraction to her thoughts.

‘Don’t you think a little music would be nice,’ says Miss Appleby, ‘nothing enlivens one so much on a wet day.’

‘Let us have some by all means,’ says Helmdon.  ’I say Tommy, I’m sure you’ll honour us with a song, eh, what?’

Tommy is a very juvenile young man, with light hair parted down the middle, a red face, and pince-nez.

‘Anything you like,’ he responds gaily.

‘Come along then,’ and away starts Chubby to the drawing-room followed by the others.  ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,’ he begins having opened the piano, ’I give you fair warning that every one of you will have to contribute to the entertainment.’

‘Catch me,’ says George Seaton, and on the earliest opportunity slips away to the smoking-room.

Miss Appleby is called upon to begin and sings a dear little song with very few words in it.