Supper, and then the Woodland cotillon was the programme; and almost all the tables were filled before Selwyn had an opportunity to collect Nina and Austin and capture Eileen from a very rosy-cheeked and indignant boy who had quite lost his head and heart and appeared to be on the verge of a headlong declaration.

“It’s only Percy Draymore’s kid brother,” she explained, passing her arm through his with a little sigh of satisfaction.  “Where have you been all the while?—­and with whom have you danced, please?—­and who is the pretty girl you paid court to during that last dance?  What? Didn’t pay court to her?  Do you expect me to believe that? . . .  Oh, here comes Nina and Austin. . . .  How pretty the tables look, all lighted up among the trees!  And such an uproar!”—­as they came into the jolly tumult and passed in among a labyrinth of tables, greeted laughingly from every side.

Under a vigorous young oak-tree thickly festooned with lanterns Austin found an unoccupied table.  There was a great deal of racket and laughter from the groups surrounding them, but this seemed to be the only available spot; besides, Austin was hungry, and he said so.

Nina, with Selwyn on her left, looked around for Gerald and Lansing.  When the latter came sauntering up, Austin questioned him, but he replied carelessly that Gerald had gone to join some people whom he, Lansing, did not know very well.

“Why, there he is now!” exclaimed Eileen, catching sight of her brother seated among a very noisy group on the outer edge of the illuminated zone.  “Who are those people, Nina?  Oh!  Rosamund Fane is there, too; and—­and—­”

She ceased speaking so abruptly that Selwyn turned around; and Nina bit her lip in vexation and glanced at her husband.  For, among the overanimated and almost boisterous group which was attracting the attention of everybody in the vicinity sat Mrs. Jack Ruthven.  And Selwyn saw her.

For a moment he looked at her—­looked at Gerald beside her, and Neergard on the other side, and Rosamund opposite; and at the others, whom he had never before seen.  Then quietly, but with heightened colour, he turned his attention to the glass which the servant had just filled for him, and, resting his hand on the stem, stared at the bubbles crowding upward through it to the foamy brim.

Nina and Boots had begun, ostentatiously, an exceedingly animated conversation; and they became almost aggressive, appealing to Austin, who sat back with a frown on his heavy face—­and to Eileen, who was sipping her mineral water and staring thoughtfully at a big, round, orange-tinted lantern which hung like the harvest moon behind Gerald, throwing his curly head into silhouette.

[Illustration:  “Gerald beside her, and Neergard on the other side.”]

What conversation there was to carry, Boots and Nina carried.  Austin silently satisfied his hunger, eating and drinking with a sullen determination to make no pretence of ignoring a situation that plainly angered him deeply.  And from minute to minute he raised his head to glare across at Gerald, who evidently was unconscious of the presence of his own party.