"We were disappointed at seeing no gannets," announced Mrs. Mansell. "Of course, when we were on Ionah last year we saw hundreds of gannets."

"Ah, is that so indeed?" said Silas Kane.

"I saw a film about a lot of gannets once," suddenly remarked young Mr. Harte. He added disparagingly: "It wasn't too bad."

Neither Silas nor Mrs. Mansell paid any heed to this contribution to the conversation, and young Mr. Harte, who was rising fifteen, returned unabashed to the rending of a drumstick.

Young Mr. Harte was not really a member of the family, but his mother, by reason of her first marriage with Silas' nephew James, ranked in the Kanes' estimation as a Kane. James had been killed in the Great War, and although the Kanes bore no ill-will towards Sir Adrian Harte, they could never understand why Norma, who was left in comfortable circumstances, had taken it into her head to marry him.

Neither Norma nor Sir Adrian was present at this gathering. Norma, who had developed in her thirties a passion for penetrating into the more inaccessible parts of the world, was believed to be amongst pygmies and gorillas in the Belgian Congo, and Sir Adrian, though invited to the party, had excused himself with a vague and graceful plea of a previous engagement. He had sent in his stead, however, his son Timothy, in charge of Jim Kane, his stepson, who was even now trying to catch Miss Allison's eye over the bank of flowers in the middle of the table.

Timothy had come to stay. Jim had brought him down in his cream-coloured sports car with a charming note from Sir Adrian. Sir Adrian had providentially remembered that Silas, upon the occasion of Timothy's last visit, had said that he must come again whenever he liked and for as long as he liked, and Sir Adrian, confronted by the task of amusing his son during the eight weeks of his summer holidays, decided that the day of Timothy's liking to visit Cliff House again had dawned.