Chapter 37 - Page 2

my opinion."

They conversed amiably together for nearly a quarter of an hour before
Mr. Owen Delamore went on his way murmuring polite regrets concerning
impending rehearsals, his secret gratitude expressing itself in special
courtesy to Lord Coombe.

As he was leaving the room, Feather called to him airily:

"If you hear any more of the Zepps--just dash in and tell me!--Don't
lose a minute! Just dash!"

When the front door was heard to close upon him, Coombe remarked
casually:

"I will ask you to put an immediate stop to that sort of thing."

He observed that Feather fluttered--though she had lightly moved to a
table as if to rearrange a flower in a group.

"Put a stop to letting Mr. Delamore go over his scene here?"

"Put a stop to Mr. Delamore, if you please."

It was at this moment more than ever true that her light being was
overstrung and that her light head whirled too fast. This one particular
also overstrung young man had shared all her amusements with her and had
ended by pleasing her immensely--perhaps to the verge of inspiring a
touch of fevered sentiment she had previously never known. She told
herself that it was the War when she thought of it. She had however not
been clever enough to realise that she was a little losing her head in a
way which might not be to her advantage. For the moment she lost it
completely. She almost whirled around as she came to Coombe.

"I won't," she exclaimed. "I won't!"

It was a sort of shock to him. She had never done anything like it
before. It struck him that he had never before seen her look as she
looked at the moment. She was a shade too dazzlingly made up--she had
crossed the line on one side of which lies the art which is perfect.
Even her dress had a suggestion of wartime lack of restraint in its
style and colours.

It was of a strange green and a very long scarf of an intensely vivid
violet spangled with silver paillettes was swathed around her bare
shoulders and floated from her arms. One of the signs of her excitement
was that she kept twisting its ends without knowing that she was
touching it. He noted that she wore a big purple amethyst ring--the
amethyst too big. Her very voice was less fine in its inflections and as
he swiftly took in these points Coombe recognised that they were the
actual result of the slight tone of raffishness he had observed as
denoting the character of her increasingly mixed circle.

She threw herself into a chair palpitating in one of her rages of a
little cat--wreathing her scarf round and round her wrist and singularly
striking him with the effect of almost spitting and hissing out her