“Waiting for me to go and help her find fault with the gardeners.”  Chris was still smiling a little, but there was not much humour in her voice.

“Oh, rats!  Don’t go!” said Noel.  “Come along into the gun-room, and help me make some fireworks.  It will be much more fun.”

A spark of the old ardour kindled in Chris’s eyes.  “Oh, are you going to make fireworks?” she said.  “Have you got the ingredients?”

He nodded.  “Nearly all.  Come and see.  What we haven’t got we must manufacture.  I know where there are plenty of cartridges.”

Chris yielded to the eager pulling of his arm.  “I suppose Trevor wouldn’t mind for once,” she said.  She had grown unaccountably scrupulous in this respect.

But Noel jeered at the notion.  “Who cares?  It’ll be all over long before he comes home to-morrow.  We will have a regular jollification to-night.  You and I will run the show, and Aunt Phil and Bertrand can look on and admire.  I say, Chris, I’ve got a ripping receipt for Catherine wheels—­not the big ones, those little things you hold and buzz round.  You know!”

His enthusiasm was infectious.  It drew her almost in spite of herself.  Besides, it meant a temporary respite from the continual burden that weighed her down, and brief though it must be, she could not bring herself to refuse it.  She went with him, therefore, with the feeling of one who has signed a truce with the enemy, and in a couple of minutes they were securely closeted in the gun-room, with the door locked against all intruders, and all thoughts of Aunt Philippa and any other troublous problems as resolutely excluded from their minds.

The hours of the morning literally flew.  Luncheon-time found them absorbed in a most critical process.

“Bust lunch!” said Noel.  “We can’t possibly leave this now.”

But Chris’s sense of duty proved too strong for her inclination at this juncture, and she sallied forth from their retreat to rescue Bertrand from a tete-a-tete meal with her aunt.

There was a sparkle of merriment in her eyes when she entered the dining-room.  The engrossing work of the morning had done her good.  She was fully five minutes late, and Bertrand, who had presented himself sharp on the hour with military punctuality, was waiting by the window.

He came swiftly to meet her.  She had not seen him before that day.

“You are looking well this morning,” he said, in his quick, friendly way.  “You have been busy, yes?”

His soft eyes interrogated her, as for an instant he held her hand.  Never once had she found those eyes impossible to meet.  They held the fidelity of unswerving friendship.

“Oh yes,” she said, “busy in a fashion—­a very childish fashion, Bertie.  Noel and I are making fireworks!”

“Fireworks!” he echoed.

“Yes, we are going to have a grand display tonight.  Will you come and look on?”