’Wych Hazel was growing rather weary of the talk.  ’Who were the singers to-night, Mr. Nightingale?’ she said, pitching her voice for his benefit alone.

‘Really,’ said he, in an answering tone, ’I am not musical enough to be certain about it.  Voices in common speech I can understand and appreciate; but in this kind of manifestation—­ Mrs. Powder knows her business.  She had secured the right sort of thing.  The principal singer is a lady who has studied abroad; they are all visitors or dwellers in the neighbourhood.  Did you like the performance?’

’Some of it; but the singing above all.  You cannot understand that?’

‘If you and Miss Kennedy want to whisper,’ said Kitty Fisher, ’fall back a little, can’t you, Mr. Nightingale? or turn down another path.  It disturbs my own train of thought, this trying to hear what other people say.’

‘Nobody would suspect Miss Fisher,’ said Rollo, dryly, ’of being unwilling that anybody should hear what she has to say.’

‘Do you know,’ said Kitty, turning upon him with an emphasizing pressure of the arm she held, ’what my thoughts really are at work upon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s hear.  Tell me, and I’ll tell you.’

‘I do not think,’ said Rollo, slowly,—­’it would be expedient.’

’Fudge!  You know you couldn’t.  I have been trying to find out what so extremely sedate a person was after when he undertook to walk me round in the moonlight!’

And in defiance of everything, Wych Hazel’s soft ‘Ha! ha!’ responded,—­a little as if the question had perplexed her too.

‘Have you had a good time?’ said Rollo coolly.

’Very!—­which makes it the more puzzling.  Did Mr. Rollo ever walk with you in the moonlight, Miss Kennedy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have a good time?’ said Kitty.

The girl hesitated; but among her accomplishments the art of pretty fibs had not been included.  The truth had to come out in some shape.

’So far as Mr. Rollo could make it,’—­she said at last.

O how Kitty Fisher laughed! and the gentlemen both smiled.

‘Why, that is capital!’ she cried.  ’I couldn’t have done better myself!’ Wych Hazel blushed painfully; but Rollo’s answer was extremely unconcerned.

‘I don’t always give people a good time,’ he said.  ’You are fortunate, Miss Kitty.  I am impelled to ask, in this connection, how long Mrs. Powder expects us to make our good times this evening?’

Upon comparing watches in the moonlight, it was found that the night was well on its way.  There was nothing more to do but to go home.

On the way home, a little bit of talk occurred in the rockaway, which may be reported.  Going along quietly in the bright moonlit road, Rollo driving, Primrose suddenly asked a question—­

‘Didn’t you use to be a great waltzer, Duke?’

‘A waltzer?—­yes.’

‘Then what made you not waltz to-night?’