I really haven't any excuse to offer except"-- with a small _gamin_ smile--"that I was otherwise occupied!" "If the occupation was a matter of toilette, we'll excuse you," observed St.John, surveying her with the usual masculine approbation of a white frock defined with touches of black.

"The time wasn't wasted." Nan slipped her arm affectionately into his.
"Oh, _why_ aren't you forty years younger and someone else's uncle?
You'd be such a charming young man!" she exclaimed.
St.John smiled.
"I was, my dear--forty years ago." And he sighed.
During the next half hour the remainder of the guests came dropping in by twos and threes, and after a little desultory conversation everyone settled down to the serious business of bridge.

Now and then those who were not playing ventured a subdued murmur of talk amongst themselves, but for the most part the silence of the room was only broken by voices declaring trumps in a rapidly ascending scale of values, and then, after a hectic interval, by the same voices calling out the score in varying degrees of satisfaction or otherwise.
Nan, as a rule, played a good game, but to-day her play was nervous and erratic, and Mallory, her partner of the moment, instinctively connected this with the agitation she had shown on receiving the wire.

Ignorant of its contents, he awaited developments.
He had not very long to wait.

Shortly afterwards the trill of the door-bell pealed through the flat, followed by a sound of footsteps in the hall, and, a minute later, Maryon Rooke came into the room.