day—that he had met a man in town he knew and had asked him to dine.

“But,” gasped Pamela, “did you forget what day it is?”

“I haven’t had a chance of forgetting,” he replied, smiling. “Dare won’t clash with the harmony. I think you’ll like him.”

“Oh, like him!” she said. “That isn’t the point. He’ll be an odd man. I can’t possibly ask any one to fill up at the eleventh hour. And—good gracious, Herbert!—he’ll bring our numbers up to thirteen. What a deplorable thing for you to have done!”

He looked amused.

“Why shouldn’t thirteen people be as jolly as twelve?” he asked. “You aren’t going to make me believe that you are silly enough to feel superstitious about it; because, if you are, I’ll sit out.”

“That would spoil everything for me,” she said. “I don’t know that I’m exactly superstitious; but other people are; and some one may not like it. It’s—unfortunate.”

“I’ll motor to the Mount Nelson and put him off, if you like,” he suggested.

But Pamela negatived this.

“He’d think it so queer,” she objected.

“Not he. But he would probably conclude I was henpecked.”

“Let him come,” said Pamela resignedly. “Perhaps no one will notice at a round table that we make such an awkward total. But the next time you do a thing like that, do make it a pair.”

Pamela dressed early. She had a new frock for the occasion, white and soft and unrelieved by any colour, and she wore for her sole ornament her husband’s gift of pearls. Arnott surveyed her with critical appreciation when she entered the drawing-room. He held her by the arms under the electric light.

“By Jove! Pam, you look prettier to-night than I’ve ever seen you look,” he remarked. “I’m proud of you.”

She lifted her face to be kissed.

“Just one—on the lips,” she said. “You mustn’t crumple me.”

In the dining-room on the other side of the hall the dinner-table was already rearranged to accommodate the additional guest. A caterer from Cape Town was responsible for everything; so Pamela had no anxiety in regard to the entertainment, and felt almost a guest herself. It was such a delightfully easy way of entertaining. She had peeped into the room to inspect the table decorations, and expressed herself charmed with the whole effect. The floral design was perfect.

This mode of giving parties without any trouble, and not even being worried with the bills, which she never saw, was very agreeable. Pamela’s mind reverted often to the schoolroom days, to the prize award functions, and other entertainments of similar dulness, needing much weary preparation, and she wondered if she had ever really enjoyed those things. At the time, though often tired out with the business of organising and assisting, she had thought them pleasant enough. But she could not go back to that sort of thing, not now. Prosperity had killed her appreciation of simple pleasures.

The guests began to arrive. Dare was the last. He was indeed rather late, which Pamela thought was rude of him, until he explained that his taxi had broken down on the road. He did not make his apology immediately; it came out later in the course of conversation. At the moment of meeting his hostess the thing slipped from his mind. He showed surprise when first confronted with her. It was a very brief betrayal, just a momentary unexpected flash of something which looked like recognition in his grey-blue eyes. It passed almost immediately before she could be certain it had been there; his face was mask-like in its gravity as he shook hands with her.

He murmured something. Pamela did not quite catch what he said; but the main drift of the remark was to the effect that he appreciated the kindness which gave him this opportunity of meeting her in her home. She thought him rather abrupt, and decided that he would not add greatly to the general amusement. Later, she modified this opinion, because, despite a severe appearance and the slight awkwardness he displayed on entering, he proved an excellent conversationalist.

He was a tall man in the early thirties, rather thin, with a clever face, and light keen, extraordinarily penetrating eyes. By profession he was a mining engineer, and Arnott had described him as a particularly smart man at his job. He had met him in Cape Town before his marriage, and had run across him again that day unexpectedly after the lapse of years. The invitation to dinner had been prompted by impulse; he had no particular feeling of friendship for the man.

Dare, who was often in Cape Town, was acquainted with some of the guests present. The Carruthers, who were neighbours of the Arnotts, and with whom Pamela was on terms of greater intimacy than with the majority of her large circle of friends, had known him for years. Mrs Carruthers had once thought of marrying him before she met Carruthers, misled by a certain deferential kindliness he displayed towards all women, being naturally fond of the sex, into thinking he cared for her. She still flirted mildly with him on the occasions when they met; but she had grown out of the belief that her marriage mattered to him.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she remarked, when he sought her out after dinner and suggested a stroll in the grounds. “I did not think you knew the Arnotts.”

“I knew Arnott years ago, before he was married,” he answered.

“Then you haven’t met her before? ... They’ve been married five years.”

“So long ago as that, was it?” he observed meditatively. “She is very sweet looking.”

“Yes; she is pretty,” Mrs Carruthers allowed. “They are the most devoted couple in the Peninsula.”

“What’s amiss between you and Dick?” he asked.

“Oh!” she laughed. “I never worshipped Dickie quite so blindly as that. The Arnotts’ is the only case of perennial courtship I’ve ever been privileged to witness... But after all five years is but a step of the journey.”

“I should think a man could continue in love indefinitely with a woman like Mrs Arnott,” he remarked.

“If time stood still for her, perhaps,” she conceded. “But she won’t always be pretty.”

“She will always be sweet,” he returned. “I don’t set great store by looks myself. But I like a woman to be amiable; and a sweet expression suggests a sweet disposition.”

“It may suggest it; it doesn’t necessarily prove that it’s there.”

“Leave me a few of my pleasant beliefs,” he pleaded. “It’s an old-fashioned notion, but I like to think that the world is a good place, and human nature on the whole inclined to charity. It’s a much more comfortable theory than the deliberately cultivated scepticism towards the disinterestedness of human motives. I like to think that what looks sweet, is sweet; just as I like to believe that when a woman is kind to me it is because she feels kindly. That is why I always enjoy being with you.”

“By which subtle flattery you force me to sheathe my claws, and make an effort towards being amiable. You haven’t altered much.”

“Nor have you,” he returned, smiling. “And amiability being one of your many admirable qualities, the effort you propose making on my behalf won’t cost you much.”

Since the time of year