The same group was gathered in the same room just twenty-three hours later. But Mrs. Leavitt, detained last night on one of her many domestic cares (she never had learned to wear her domestic cares lightly, and probably would have enjoyed them less if she had) was here also to-night: an upright, satin-clad figure very busy with an elaborate piece of needlework. She made no contributions to the chat—the new stitch was difficult—but constantly her eye glanced from her needle, here, there and everywhere—searching for dust.

Richard Bransby had not yet readied his decision, and the self-suspense was punishing him badly. Latham was anxious. His keen eyes saw a dozen signs he disliked.

Stephen sat apart smoking moodily, but watchful—a dark, well-groomed man, with but one beauty: his agile hands. They looked gifted, deft and powerful. They were all three.

Again Helen and Hugh were together at a far end of the big room, chatting softly. Bransby watched them uneasily. (Stephen was glad to notice that.)

Bransby stood it a little longer, and then he called, “Helen!”

She rose and came to him at once, “Yes, Daddy?”

Bransby fumbled rather—at a loss what to say—what excuse to make for having called her. He even stammered a little. “Why—why—” then glancing by accident towards the book-shelves, a ruse occurred to him that would answer, that would keep her from Hugh, as his voice had called her from him. “I don’t think,” he said, “that Latham has seen that new edition of Dickens of mine. Show it to him. Show him the illustrations especially.”

Latham raised a hand in mock horror. “Another edition!”

But even a better diversion was to hand. Barker stood palpitating in the door with which she had just collided, her agitation in no way soothed by the fact that Hugh winked at her encouragingly. “Mrs. Hilary,” she announced, crimsoning. The girl could scarcely have blushed redder if she had been obliged to read her own banns.

Angela Hilary came in with almost a run; seeing Helen, she rushed on her and embraced her dramatically with a little cry. She was almost hysterical—but prettily so, quite altogether prettily so. She wore the unkempt emotion as perfectly as she did her ravishing frock—you couldn’t help thinking it suited her—not the frock—though indeed that did, too, to a miracle.

“Helen! Oh, my dear!” Seeing Bransby, she released the smiling Helen, and dashed at him, seizing his hand. “Mr. Bransby, oh—I am so glad! Dear Mrs. Leavitt, too: I am so relieved”—which was rather more than Caroline could have said. She disliked being hugged, especially just after dinner, and she had lost count, and dropped her fine crochet-hook.

Mrs. Hilary turned to Stephen and wrung his hand warmly, half sobbing, “It is Mr. Pryde?”

“Yes,” he told her gravely, “I have not changed my name since last week.”

But Angela paid no attention to what he said. She rarely did pay much attention to what other people said. “Dear Mr. Pryde,” she bubbled on at him, “oh! and you are quite all right.” Hugh came strolling down the room. Angela Hilary was a great favorite of his. She rushed to him and caught him by the shoulder, “Lieutenant Hugh. Oh, how do you do?” Then she caught sight of Latham. She pounced on him. He edged away, a little embarrassed. She followed the closer—“Dr. Latham! Now my cup is full. Oh! this is wonderful.”

“Yes, isn’t it!” he stammered, greatly embarrassed. Through the back of his head he could see Helen watching him. What a nuisance the woman was, and how fiendishly pretty! Really, American women ought to be locked up when they invaded London, at least if they were half as lovely and a quarter as incalculable as this teasing specimen. Interning Huns seemed fatuous to him, when such disturbers of Britain’s placidity as this were permitted abroad. Positively he was afraid of this bizarre creature. What would she say next? What do?

What she did was to seize him by his beautifully tailored arm. Latham hated being hugged, and at any time, far more than Mrs. Leavitt did. Indeed he could not recall that he ever had been hugged. He was conscious of no desire to be initiated into that close procedure—and, of all places to suffer it, this was about as undesirable as he could imagine. And this woman respected neither places nor persons. She had hugged poor Mrs. Leavitt unmistakably. What if——He flushed and tried to extricate his coat sleeve.

Angela held him the tighter and looked tenderly into his eyes with her great Creole eyes, surely inherited from some southern foremother. He thought he heard Helen giggle softly. “My dear Dr. Latham! Oh!”—then, with a sudden change of manner, that was one of her most bewildering traits, an instant change this time from the hysterical to the commonplace—“You will have lunch with me to-morrow—half-past one.” It was not a question, but simply an announcement.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” Latham began. “I am returning to town on an early train.” Yes, he did hear Helen smother a laugh?—hang the girl! and that was Hugh’s chuckle.

“Pouf!” Angela Hilary blew his words aside as if they had been a wisp of thistledown. “Then you’ll have to change your plans and take a later one.”

“But really I——”

“We’ll consider it settled. You men here all need reforming,” she added severely to Hugh, catching his eye. “In America we women bring up our men perfectly: they do us great credit.”

“But this is not America,” Stephen Pryde interposed indolently.

Angela Hilary drew herself up to all her lovely, graceful height. “But I am American—an American woman.” She said it very quietly. No English woman living could have said it more quietly or more coldly. It was all she said. But it was quite enough. Horace Latham took out his engagement-book, an entirely unnecessary bit of social by-play on his part, and he knew it. He knew in his startled bachelor heart that he would not forget that engagement, or arrive late at the tryst. But he was not going to marry any one, much less be laughed into it by Helen Bransby, or witched into it by bewildering personality and composite loveliness. And as for marrying an American wife—he, Horace Latham, M.D., F.R.C.P.—the shades of all his ancestors forbid! But what was the tormenting thing doing now?

Suddenly remembering the object of her visit, she pushed an easy-chair into the center of the room (claiming and taking the stage as it were) and sank into it hysterically.

Mrs. Leavitt looked up uneasily; she hated the furniture moved about.

“Oh! thank Heaven,” cried Angela, “you are all here.”

“Why shouldn’t we be all here?” laughed Helen.

“I’ve seen all my friends in the neighborhood now,” Angela answered, relaxing and lying back in relief, “and every one is all right.”

Even Bransby was amused. “Why shouldn’t they be all right?” he asked, laughing, and motioning Latham towards the cigars.

“Don’t jest, Mr. Bransby,” she implored him. “I have had a very solemn communication this afternoon.”

“Good gracious!” Hugh said.

“Communication?” Helen queried.

They all gathered about her now—with their eyes—in amused bewilderment. Even Aunt Caroline looked up from her lace-making.

Angela nodded gravely. “Yes.”

“A—er—communication from whom?” Stephen asked lazily.

“From Wah-No-Tee.”

“Who in the world is Wah-No-Tee?” Pryde demanded.

“Why, my medium’s Indian control.”

Hugh chuckled—his laugh always was a nice boyish chuckle. Mrs. Leavitt looked shocked—Stephen winked at his cigarette as he lit it. Latham laid down the cigar he had selected but not yet lit.

“Indian control?” Bransby said—quite at a loss.

Helen explained. “Mrs. Hilary is interested in spiritualism, Daddy.”

“Oh!” Bransby was frankly disgusted. Either Angela did not notice this, or was perfectly indifferent.

Stephen was greatly amused. A charming smile lit his sharp face. “Is it permitted to ask what Wah-No-Tee’s communication was, Mrs. Hilary?” he said—almost caressingly.

“She told me——”

“Oh—” interjected Stephen—“Wah-No-Tee is a lady?”

“Oh! Quite. She told me this morning that one of my dearest friends was just ‘passing over.’ I was so worried. I hurried back from town as quickly as I could, and ever since dinner I have been rushing about calling on every dear friend I have”—she gave Latham a soft look. “And, as I said—they are all quite all right. Silly mistake!”

Bransby gave a short grunt. “Surely, Mrs. Hilary,” he said irritably, “you’re not serious.”

“I am always serious,” she told him emphatically. “I love being serious.”

Bransby picked up the paper-weight and shook it irritably, god, lotus and all. “But you can’t believe in such rubbish.”

Helen caught his hand warningly. “Daddy! you’ll break poor old Joss!” For a moment his hand and her young hand closed together over the costly toy, and then she made him put it down, prying under his heavy fingers with her soft ones.

“Of course, I believe in it,” Angela said superiorly. “Why, there have been quite a number of books written about it lately.”

“Foolish books,” snapped Bransby.

Mrs. Hilary answered him most impressively. “There are more what-you-may-call-’ems in Heaven and Earth, Horatio——” she said earnestly.

Bransby interrupted her, absently in his irritation taking up “Joss” again. “But, my dear lady——”

“Even men of science believe.” Angela Hilary could interrupt as well as the next.

“Now-a-days men of science believe anything—even such stuff as this.” Again Helen gently rescued the bit of jade.

“‘Stuff!’ Mr. Bransby; it is not ‘stuff’!”

“But your own words prove that it is,” Bransby continued the duel.

“My own words?”

“You’ve just admitted your—‘communication’ I think you called it—was a silly mistake.”

For one time in her life she was completely non-plused. There had not been many such times.

“Well—well——” she began, but she could find no useful words. Her annoyance was so keen that Helen feared she was going to cry. She could cry, too—Helen had seen her do it. Helen caught up a box of cigarettes and carried them to Angela, hoping to divert her.

“Do have a cigarette,” she urged.

Mrs. Hilary shook her head violently, but sadly. Helen threw Hugh a look of despair.

That warrior was no diplomatist, but a beautifully obedient lover. He hurried to Mrs. Hilary and bent over her almost tenderly, and said, “Ripping weather—what?”

Mrs. Hilary gave him a baleful look—almost a glare—and turned her shoulder on him. Hugh shrugged his shoulders helplessly, throwing Helen an apologetic look.

Helen, in despair, nodded imploringly at Stephen. He smiled, lowered his cigarette, and addressed their volatile guest. “What a charming frock that is, Mrs. Hilary.”

The delightful comedienne threw him a sharp look—and melted. “Do you think so really?”

“It’s most becoming,” he said enthusiastically.

A smile creamed sunnily over the petulant, delicate face. “I think it does suit me,” she said joyfully.

They all gave a sigh of relief.

“Who made it for you, Angela?” Helen asked hurriedly.

“Clarice—you know, in Albemarle Street.” The cure was complete.

But Helen repeated the dose. “She does make adorable things. I am going to try her. You know Mrs. Montague goes to her, and she says——”

But what Mrs. Montague said was never told, for at the Verona-like name Angela Hilary sprang to her feet with a scream of “Good Heavens!”

“Why, what’s up?” Hugh exclaimed.

“I forgot to call on the Montagues—and poor dear Mr. Montague has such dreadful gout. How could I be so heartless as to forget the Montagues? Such perfectly dreadful gout. Oh, well, one never knows—one never knows. Good-night, everybody. I am sure you won’t mind my rushing off like this”—both Bransby and Caroline looked resigned—“but I am so worried. Good-night—good-night.” She paused in the door, “Don’t forget, Dr. Latham, to-morrow at half-past one sharp.” She threw him a sweet, imperative look, and was gone—as she had come—in a silken whirl and a jangle of jewels and chains.