It was indeed but a week since the son and his wife had arrived--with their baby girl--at Heston Park, after a summer of yachting and fishing in Norway; since Lady Barnes had journeyed thither from London to meet them; and Mr.and Mrs.French had accepted an urgent invitation from Roger, quite sufficiently backed by Daphne, to stay for a few days with Mr.French's old pupil, before the reopening of Eton.
During that time there had been no open quarrels of any kind; but Elsie French was a sensitive creature, and she had been increasingly aware of friction and annoyance behind the scenes.

And now here was Lady Barnes let loose! and Daphne might appear at any moment, before she could be re-caged.
"She puts you down so!" cried that lady, making gestures with the paper-knife she had just been employing on the pages of a Mudie book.
"If I tell her that something or other--it doesn't matter what--cost at least a great deal of money, she has a way of smiling at you that is positively insulting! She doesn't trouble to argue; she begins to laugh, and raises her eyebrows.

I--I always feel as if she had struck me in the face! I know I oughtn't to speak like this; I hadn't meant to do it, especially to a country-woman of hers, as you are." "Am I ?" said Elsie, in a puzzled voice.
Lady Barnes opened her eyes in astonishment.
"I meant"-- the explanation was hurried--"I thought--Mrs.Barnes was a South American?
Her mother was Spanish, of course; you see it in Daphne." "Yes; in her wonderful eyes," said Mrs.French warmly; "and her grace--isn't she graceful! My husband says she moves like a sea-wave.
She has given her eyes to the child." "Ah! and other things too, I'm afraid!" cried Lady Barnes, carried away.
"But here is the baby." For the sounds of a childish voice were heard echoing in the domed hall outside.

Small feet came pattering, and the drawing-room door was burst open by Roger Barnes, holding a little girl of nearly two and a half by the hand.
Lady Barnes composed herself.

It is necessary to smile at children, and she endeavoured to satisfy her own sense of it.
"Come in, Beatty; come and kiss granny!" And Lady Barnes held out her arms.
But the child stood still, surveyed her grandmother with a pair of startling eyes, and then, turning, made a rush for the door.