If you are quite ready, we will take our coffee in the library." He turned to Virginia, who had risen at once to leave them.

"In an hour and a half exactly, Virginia," he said, "come into the library.

Not before." She glanced at her watch and made a note of the hour.

Then she wandered off to one of the smaller drawing-rooms, and, to relieve a certain strain of which she was somehow conscious, she played the piano softly.
In the middle of a nocturne of Chopin's the door was opened, and a young man was shown into the room.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "you are Miss Longworth ?" She rose at once from the piano seat.

He was not dressed for the evening, and he carried a felt hat in his hand.