At one end of the terrace there was an awning whose shade fell upon the brick flooring and the jars of bloom; and this afternoon it also shaded Isabelle, in a basket chair, and the big hound, and Tony Pope.  Harriet cast them a passing glance, and wondered a little in her heart.  The boy was handsome, and fascinating, and rich, but it was just a little unusual to have Isabelle so openly interested in any one.  There were no other callers this afternoon; Nina had driven to the golf club with her father, and might be expected to remain there for tea, if any entertainment offered, or to return home when Hansen brought the car back.

The thought of Nina brought Royal Blondin again to Harriet’s mind, and she was conscious of a little internal wincing.  But that risk must be faced simply, as one of the unpalatable possibilities of life.  That Royal would take some step against which she must, in honour bound, protest; that Nina should engage herself to him, and Nina’s parents consent; that no fortuitous circumstance should play into Harriet’s hands, and that she should be obliged to antagonize him openly. was unthinkable on this peaceful, golden afternoon.  The canvas was too big, the cast of characters too large, there must be some shifting of scene, some change in plot, before anything so momentous occurred.

Yet the danger, faint though it might be, was already influencing her.  She was committed to a certain amount of diplomatic silence now; her position here had subtly changed since the hour that brought Royal Blondin back into her life a few days ago.  Linda’s concern, and her own agony of apprehension when she first saw him, had shown her just how frail was her hold upon this pleasant and smooth existence, and in self-defence she had begun for the first time to think of making it more definite.  If she was to have all the terrors of maintaining a dangerous position, at least she might be sure of its sweets.

Undefined and vague, all this was still somewhere in the background of her thoughts as she returned to Crownlands, and when she met Ward Carter, wrestling with the engine of his own rather disreputable racing car, out in one of the clean, gravelled spaces near the garage.  His coat was off, his fresh, pleasant face streaked with oil and earth, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

Harriet, who had wandered out idly, felt a little quickening of her pulses as she saw him.  There was no mistaking the pleasure in his eyes as she came close.

“Spark plugs?” she asked, with the sympathy of one to whom the peculiarities of the car were familiar.

“She’s fixed now; I’ve just cleaned ’em,” Ward announced, flinging away his cigarette, and straightening his back.  “She’ll go like a bird, now.  When did you get back?”

“Your father drove me home, like the angel he is.  You came with Nina?”

“Nina and Blondin.  Then I drove him on to the Evans’s.  But she began to act queer on the way home,” said Ward, fondly, of the car.  “Say—­get in and try her, will you?” he asked, eagerly.