She was wearing a fashionable bonnet and her red hair gleamed beneath it and her green silk pelisse in the very latest fashion was very becoming.

Her skin was very white, her eyes had a touch of green in them, and it flashed through Honora’s mind that it was very strange that her father could have become bored with her so quickly.

Aloud she said,

“I am afraid Papa is out.”

“He is always out when I want to see him,” Lady Studleigh said. “When will he be back?”

“I don’t know,” Honora replied. “I think he has driven down to Ranelagh.”

“He will not be doing that alone!” Lady Studleigh exclaimed sharply.

Suddenly she sat down on a chair and said in a very different tone,

“What am I to do? Oh, God, what am I to do?”

Feeling shy and awkward Honora did not know how to reply.

She only watched Lady Studleigh’s beautiful eyes fill with tears. Then, as she wiped them away with a small lace-edged handkerchief, she rose to her feet and walked towards the door.

As she reached it, she turned back to say in a voice that was hoarse and broken,

“Tell your father when he comes back that, if he has any compassion in his heart or any feeling of decency, he must come to me. I have to see him – do you understand?”

“Yes, of course,” Honora answered, “I will tell Papa.”

Lady Studleigh had not said any more. She had gone from the drawing room and Honora had pitied her.

She knew that her father was escorting a new interest in his life and, when he returned looking exceedingly handsome and with a light in his eyes that showed he had enjoyed himself, Honora told him what had occurred.

“Noreen Studleigh had no right to come here worrying you,” he said. “It is an extraordinary thing that women never seem to know when the game is over.”

“Is that what it is, Papa? A game?”

“Of course that is what it is,” her father had said. “A game in which two people are meant to enjoy themselves with no regrets and no recriminations.”

“But Lady Studleigh was crying, Papa.”

“Women can cry very easily when they cannot get their own way,” her father said. “I am sorry, Honora, that you may think me hard, but there is nothing I can do about it.”

“If you saw her, Papa, would it not make it better?”

“No, worse!” her father replied. “Lady Studleigh wants what I cannot give her.”

Honora did not speak for a moment and then as if she was working it out for herself, she asked,

“Is that love, Papa?”

“I suppose you could call it that,” her father answered, “but love, my darling, is something that cannot be turned on like a tap. Either it is there, or it is not, and no amount of tears, words or pleas can produce it.”

Honora thought over what he had said when she was alone and had been sure that he was right.