"Of course," Margaret said hastily.

But Mrs. Ballinger did not give up so easily. She produced a card from her reticule and passed it to him. It noted her name and address. "You are always welcome, Sir Oliver, even if you are not able to confirm beforehand. We are not so very formal as to admit only those we expect when an evening of social pleasure is to be enjoyed."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ballinger." He took the card and slipped it into his pocket. He was sufficiently annoyed with her insen-sitivity that he might even go, for Margaret's sake. Looking at her now, standing stiffly with her shoulders squared, horribly uncomfortable, and knowing this ritual would be observed until she was either successfully married or past marriageable age, she reminded him faintly of Hester Latterly, whom he had come to know in some ways so well in the last few years. There was a similar courage and vulnerability in her, an awareness of precisely what was going on, a contempt for it, and yet a knowledge that she was inevitably caught up in it and trapped.

Of course, Hester was not any longer similarly caught. She had broken free and gone to the Crimea to nurse with Florence Nightingale, and returned changed forever. It was her personal loss that both her parents had died in the tragedy which indirectly had brought about her meeting with William Monk, and thus with Rathbone. It had also spared her the otherwise inevitable round of parties, balls, soirees, and attendances at any conceivable kind of social occasion until her mother had found her an acceptable husband. Acceptable to her family, of course, not necessarily to her.

But Hester must be about thirty now, and too old for most men to find her appealing-of which fact she could not be unaware. Standing in this glittering room with the music in the background and the press and hum of scores of people, the clink of glasses, the faint smells of warmth, champagne, stiff material and sometimes of flowers and perfume, he could not help wondering if it hurt her. And yet only a few months ago he had been so close to asking her to marry him. He had even led into an appropriate conversation. He could remember it now with a sudden wave of disappointment. He was certain she had known what he was going to say, and she had gently, very indirectly, allowed him to understand that she was not ready to give him an answer.