"You and Philippa used to have it at half-past seven, did you not?
Don't you think that rather too late ?" "A trifle perhaps," said the rector uneasily.

He didn't care to explain to Juliana that it was impossible to get home any earlier from the kind of _the dansant_ that everybody was giving just now.

"But don't trouble about dinner.

I may be working very late.

If I need anything to eat I shall get a biscuit and some tea at the Guild Rooms, or--" He didn't finish the sentence, but in his mind he added, "or else a really first-class dinner at the Mausoleum Club, or at the Newberrys' or the Rasselyer-Browns'-- anywhere except here." "If you are going, then," said Juliana, "may I have the key of the church." A look of pain passed over the rector's face.