There was an indefinable courtliness of manner about him which recalled the days of lace ruffles and knee-breeches.

The two girls rose to greet him with unfeigned delight.
"Uncle!" cried Nan.

"How dear of you to come just when our spirits were at their lowest ebb!" "My dears!" He kissed his niece and shook hands with Penelope.

Nan pushed an armchair towards the fire and tendered her cigarette case.
"You needn't be afraid of them, Uncle David," she informed him reassuringly.

"They're not gaspers." "Sybarite! With the same confidence as if they were my own." And Lord St.John helped himself smilingly.
"And why," he continued, "has the barometer fallen ?" Nan laughed.
"You can't expect it to be always 'set fair'!" "I'd like it to be," returned St.John simply.
A fugitive thought flashed through Nan's mind that he and Peter Mallory were merely young and old representatives of a similar type of man.