“So sorry about you, Rachael!” said the slim, laceclad hostess calmly.  “Here’s Judy Moran!  Nearly six, Judy, and we dine at seven on Sundays.  But never mind, eat and drink your fill, my child.”

“Billy’s flirtin’ her head off out there!” wheezed stout Mrs. Moran, dropping into a chair.  “Joe and Kent and young Gregory and half a dozen others are out there with her.”

Mrs. Breckenridge, who had begun to frown, relaxed in her chair.

“Ah, well, there’s safety in numbers!” she said, reassured.  “You take cream, Judy, and two lumps?  Give Mrs. Moran some of those little damp, brown sandwiches, Isabelle.  A minute ago she had some of the most heavenly hot toast here, but she’s taken it away again!  I wish I could get some tea myself, but I’ve tried three times and I can’t!”

She busied herself resignedly with tongs and teapot, and as Mrs. Moran bit into her first sandwiches, and the Haviland girls moved away at a word from their mother, Rachael raised her eyes and met Warren Gregory’s look.

He was standing, ten feet away, in a doorway, his eyelids half dropped over amused eyes, his hands sunk in his coat pockets.  Rachael knew that he had been there for some moments, and her heart struggled and fluttered like a bird in a snare, and with a thrill as girlish as Charlotte’s own she felt the color rise in her cheeks.

“Come have some tea, Greg,” she said, indicating the empty chair beside her.

“Thank you, dear,” he answered, his head close to hers for a moment as he sat down.  The little word set Rachael’s heart to hammering again.  She glanced quickly to see if Mrs. Moran had overheard, but that lady had at last caught sight of the maid with the hot toast, and her ample back was turned toward the teatable.

Indeed, in the noisy, disordered room, which was beginning to be deserted by straggling groups of guests, they were quite unobserved.  To both it was a delicious moment, this little domestic interlude of tea and talk in the curved window of the dining-room, lighted by the last light of a spring day, and sweet with the scent of wilting spring flowers.

“You make my heart behave in a manner not to be described in words!” said Rachael, her fingers touching his as she handed him his tea.

“It must be mine you feel,” suggested Warren Gregory; “you haven’t one—­by all accounts!”

“I thought I hadn’t, Greg, but, upon my word—–­” She puckered her lips and raised her eyebrows whimsically, and gave her head a little shake.  Doctor Gregory gave her a shrewdly appraising look, sighed, and stirred his tea.

“If ever you discover yourself to be the possessor of such an organ, Rachael,” said he dispassionately, “you won’t joke about it over a tea-table!  You’ll wake up, my friend; we’ll see something besides laughter in those eyes of yours, and hear something besides cool reason in your voice!  I may not be the man to do it, but some man will, some day, and—­when John Gilpin rides—­”