Her brother, flushing up, began to protest and ejaculate. "Damned impertinence—" But Halo lifted her arm to examine her wristwatch. "Don't splutter like Father when he says he's going to denounce an outrage in the papers. And don't be exorbitant either." She fumbled in the shabby antelope bag which hung from her other wrist. "Here—will this do?" She took out two ten-dollar notes and held them toward her brother.

"Hell, child—" he stammered, manifestly tempted and yet furious.

"You know you wouldn't get as much out of Lewis. Better take it."

He stood with his hands in his pockets, his chin down, staring at the notes without moving.

"Come, Lorry; I tell you I'm in a hurry." She made a slight motion as though to reopen the bag and put back the money.

"I'll go down myself to fetch Lewis," he mumbled, all the fluid lines of his face hardening into an angry obstinacy.

"You won't!"

"Won't I? You'll see, then—" He caught her by the wrist, and they stood glaring at each other and breathing hard, like two angry young animals. Then Halo, with a laugh, wrenched her hand free, and reopening the bag drew out another ten dollars. She tossed the three notes on the table, and walked across the hall and out of the front door. No footsteps followed her, and she deemed it superfluous to glance back and see if the money had been removed from the table.

Chapter 3

In the cobwebby coach-house of the old stable she found the man-of-all-work, Jacob, who was chauffeur when he was not gardener and dairyman, lying on the floor with his head under the car. He emerged at her call, and said he guessed there was something wrong again, because Mr. Lorry had had trouble getting her up the hill, and maybe he'd better take her to pieces while he was about it.

"Not on your life. I'm going down to Paul's Landing in her this minute."

Jacob stared, but without protesting. "You won't get back, very likely," he merely observed, and Halo scrambled into the motor with a laugh and a shrug. The motor, she said to herself, was like life in general at Eaglewood: it was always breaking down, but it always managed to keep on going. "Tied together with string and patched up with court plaster: that's been the way with everything in the family ever since I can remember." She gave a little sigh as she slipped down the overgrown drive, heading for the stone pillars of the gateway. The motor, she knew, would be all right going down the hill to Paul's Landing—and after that, at the moment, she didn't particularly care. If she and Lewis Tarrant had to walk back to Eaglewood in the dark—well, Lewis wouldn't mind, she imagined. But meanwhile she had to catch up somehow with her forgotten engagement.