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Grace had remembered. That was one of the worst features of the whole business. And he remembered that he had warned her—that was another.

He had kept his promise. He had made himself sociable, and had played Patricia Weybourn’s accompaniments with more pleasure and less self-consciousness than he had believed possible. The woman, for all the ultra-coldness of her attitude towards her accompanist, had sung with real feeling, and her voice had proved ultra-pleasant to listen to.

That had been the first of many pleasant musical evenings; and Harley, who was a desultory composer, wrote two songs especially for Patricia Weybourn.

Grace had remarked on this.

“Love songs, Jimmy!” she had teased him. “Remember, I warned you. You’re falling in love with her.”

“Nonsense,” he had answered with an irritability which surprised himself. “I’m willing to admit that my first impression of the girl was a little wide of the mark, but this continual harping on the danger of my falling in love with her is a little wearing.”

“Jimmy!”

“Can’t you think of something else to say?”

He had stalked out of the room with dignity, and with a queer sense of guilt. He had not been willing to admit that his opinion of Patricia Weybourn had changed altogether.

Why his opinion had so changed he could not have explained. Patricia continued to treat him with the curious pitying condescension with which she had greeted him at their first meeting. She had been no less ultra in her implied assumption that he should consider himself extremely fortunate in