“All over,” he said, declining further combat.  “Play the ’Star-spangled Banner,’ Miss Erroll.”

“Boom!” crashed the chord for the sunset gun; then she played the anthem; Selwyn rose, and the children stood up at salute.

The party was over.

Selwyn and Miss Erroll, strolling together out of the nursery and down the stairs, fell unconsciously into the amiable exchange of badinage again; she taunting him with his undignified behaviour, he retorting in kind.

“Anyway that was a perfectly dreadful verse you taught Billy,” she concluded.

“Not as dreadful as the chorus,” he remarked, wincing.

“You’re exactly like a bad small boy, Captain Selwyn; you look like one now—­so sheepish!  I’ve seen Gerald attempt to avoid admonition in exactly that fashion.”

“How about a jolly brisk walk?” he inquired blandly; “unless you’ve something on.  I suppose you have.”

“Yes, I have; a tea at the Fanes, a function at the Grays. . . .  Do you know Sudbury Gray?  It’s his mother.”

They had strolled into the living room—­a big, square, sunny place, in golden greens and browns, where a bay-window overlooked the Park.

Kneeling on the cushions of the deep window seat she flattened her delicate nose against the glass, peering out through the lace hangings.

“Everybody and his family are driving,” she said over her shoulder.  “The rich and great are cornering the fresh-air supply.  It’s interesting, isn’t it, merely to sit here and count coteries!  There is Mrs. Vendenning and Gladys Orchil of the Black Fells set; there is that pretty Mrs. Delmour-Carnes; Newport!  Here come some Cedarhurst people—­the Fleetwoods.  It always surprises one to see them out of the saddle.  There is Evelyn Cardwell; she came out when I did; and there comes Sandon Craig with a very old lady—­there, in that old-fashioned coach—­oh, it is Mrs. Jan Van Elten, senior.  What a very, very quaint old lady!  I have been presented at court,” she added, with a little laugh, “and now all the law has been fulfilled.”

For a while she kneeled there, silently intent on the passing pageant with all the unconscious curiosity of a child.  Presently, without turning:  “They speak of the younger set—­but what is its limit?  So many, so many people!  The hunting crowd—­the silly crowd—­the wealthy sets—­the dreadful yellow set—­then all those others made out of metals—­copper and coal and iron and—­” She shrugged her youthful shoulders, still intent on the passing show.

“Then there are the intellectuals—­the artistic, the illuminated, the musical sorts.  I—­I wish I knew more of them.  They were my father’s friends—­some of them.”  She looked over her shoulder to see where Selwyn was, and whether he was listening; smiled at him, and turned, resting one hand on the window seat.  “So many kinds of people,” she said, with a shrug.

“Yes,” said Selwyn lazily, “there are all kinds of kinds.  You remember that beautiful nature-poem: