Chapter XII

Within the delicate shelter of her own sitting-room at Wynwood, Vingie, her slender loveliness supine on a black satin divan skilfully reinforced with cushions, gazed pathetically at Sir Charles. Her eyes held infinite depths of sadness; the touch of artificial color on her wan cheeks, the pallor of two slender hands might have wrung a heart plated in triple bronze.

With a little sigh, she put all her woe into words.

"Charles, darling, you make genuine angels look like selfish pigs," she began. "You sit here on stupid girl's furniture you don't like and dine off iced consommé, a wing of chicken, _mousse aux framboises_, a scrap of cream cheese and half a bottle of Perrier-Jouet just to cheer up a wretched invalid like me, when you might have enjoyed a respectable meal down-stairs. They don't breed men of your sort nowadays. I do realize how lucky I am to have you. Give me a cigarette, there's a dear. It's another nail in my coffin, but who cares?"

Sir Charles rose benignly and proffered fragrant Egyptians in an onyx box.

"You dispense charming hospitality, Virginia. With the exception of the Marchesa di Santa Lucia at Firenze in 1881, and she has been dead these many years, I have never known a more perfect hostess. Personally, I found the wine nectar and the food ambrosia."

"I don't want to bore you with the whinings of a peevish hag of twenty-two," continued Vingie, "but this influenza leaves one absolutely spineless. It may be the reaction, but, Charles, I see before me only a long and profitless life. I feel convinced I shall never marry or achieve a great love. My declining years will be spent patronizing charity concerts and feeding Pekinese dogs."

"These are morbid symptoms," declared Sir Charles anxiously. "We must ask Sir Thompson Johnson to prescribe a reliable tonic. In addition, possibly a cruise in the yacht of some wealthy friend might assist matters."

Vingie shook her fair head sadly.

"I am a born flirt, Charles. I've frittered away the years and toyed with men and dabbled in emotions. Now I shall pay the price, because I haven't got a heart left."

"That is not the opinion of Rupert, Virginia. He cherishes the most supreme devotion for you. When age compels George Fordingbridge to lay aside the cares of state, Rupert will undoubtedly become Minister for Foreign Affairs."

Vingie threw out her white arms despairingly.

"I, if I perish, perish, but to marry Rupert would be living death," she cried. "He does everything well and nothing wrong. He's the most insipid thing on earth. How could I endure him after you, Charles? How can I give up the most delicious _hors d'œuvures_ for an eternal diet of rice pudding? If I were to marry I should need some fascinating scoundrel who might whip me black and blue on Friday, but would certainly provide a wonderful adventure on Tuesday."

Sir Charles gazed at her thoughtfully.

"As you know," he observed, "I never married. I have always been a sprinter rather than a stayer. A brilliant five furlongs held a greater appeal for me than a mournful three miles. If I had met in my young days a woman with your tact and brilliance and beauty it might have been otherwise. Nevertheless I have observed the married, and it occurs to me that regular meals, a settled home, an adequate income and a brilliant if steady husband have their attractions. A delightful young married woman need never lack admirers in addition to her lawful spouse. After all we do not live in the eighteen-forties."

She put out a hand and touched his sleeve.

"Darling, you've perfectly sweet to poor little Vingie, but for heaven's sake don't sit there and match-make. The very idea of men wearies me just now. If all the Brigade of Guards, and all the best-looking actors, groveled at my feet I should merely writhe and turn away. Please, Charles, will you be an angel and lend me your little Dorset cottage and let me go down there with just a maid, and be alone except for the flowers and the birds and things. I think if you don't mind, I want to try to find my soul."

Sir Charles shook his gray head despondently.

"You may have everything I possess in the world to do as you like with, but your remarks leave me very perturbed. I should like Alastair McMenzies, the nerve specialist, to see you in consultation with Sir Thompson Johnson before you go away. You are very far from your normal state of health, my dear Virginia."

She scarcely heard him. She murmured on dreamily:

"No men, no restlessness, no love; only green leaves and tender grass, and blue sky. Perhaps later on I might enter a convent. They say you have to dig a little piece of your own grave every day----"

"I shall telephone to McMenzies at once," interrupted Sir Charles, with concern in his voice. "It is declared that he achieves wonderful results with the new gland treatment. I reproach myself for not consulting him even earlier."

Standing beside Sir Charles at the great entrance of Wynwood, Lord Fordingbridge betrayed joy and solicitude in equal measure; he had known Vingie since she was a child, and the faint traces of her late illness distressed him. He conducted her personally to the driving seat of a little ten horsepower Wonderful car within which a maid and luggage were already disposed.

"_Bon voyage_, and a complete recovery, my dear!" he exclaimed earnestly. "May the air, the peace, and the good cream of Dorset restore you to your former health. It grieves me to see you even slightly indisposed."

Sir Charles, also bareheaded, waved a beneficent hand as the car glided away.

The two elderly gentlemen watched it till it disappeared, and returned slowly to the library. They had reached that perfect friendship born of common interests, identical training, a similar outlook on life, and congenial sins. Sir Charles indicated the cigars and rang for whisky-and-soda.

"How is Rupert progressing?" he inquired after a long silence.

Lord Fordingbridge shrugged his shoulders.

"My dear Charles, he works. He takes just sufficient exercise to keep himself fit, and a damn' forlorn sight it is to see him do it. These women have a great deal to answer for. As far as he's concerned, the sun rises and sets in Virginia's eyes, and since she won't look at him, he remains permanently in the valley of the shadow so to speak. A dear boy, too. Equally, she's a dear girl. Charles, did you and I really take these things quite so seriously in our time?"

Sir Charles raised his eyebrows very faintly.

"I think you and I were a little more ruthless and the women of our day a little more kind, George. The most obstinate girl I remember came rapidly to her senses after I had thrown my rival--a German attaché I believe--into an ornamental pond. She and I were then inseparable for quite three months. In these days, men are too forgiving and women too difficult."

"You're a clever fellow, Charles," declared Lord Fordingbridge in frank admiration. "You put it all so clearly that even a foolish person like myself can understand. It takes me back to the old days--it must have been in 'eighty-eight--when I put Mary Canterbury, court train and all, on a particularly high mantelpiece in one of the drawing-rooms at the Imperial Palace of Schõnbrunn, and made her stay there till she promised to kiss me. You can't imagine Rupert doing that to Virginia."

"No, George, but if only he would he might find her a very different girl, if I may say so."

"He loves her too much, Charles. He'd be afraid of breaking her heart."

"If he were riding a race he might just as well shrink from putting his mare at a jump for fear of breaking her neck," declared Sir Charles with infinite contempt. "I have long made up my mind that Virginia ought to marry Rupert. Any one but themselves can see they are absolutely suited to each other."

"Oh, quite! quite! But if a stupid old man may be forgiven the question, how are you going to bring it about?"

Sir Charles drank thoughtfully, set down his glass, and lighted a fresh cigar.

"They are both green recruits, George, and therefore they must be taught. In training recruits we employ experienced non-commissioned officers. Consequently in the case of Virginia and Rupert we must choose people as nearly of our own day as is consistent with the necessary attraction. In my own circle of acquaintance there is a certain delightful widow, Mrs. Trevor-James, who would use her good offices with Rupert on my behalf."

"And still," murmured Lord Fordingbridge, "I don't think I quite understand."

"My dear George," elaborated Sir Charles with patience, "these deluded young people must be made to fall in love, separately and individually, with some one older, wiser, more unscrupulous, more experienced, than herself or himself. Do not, I beg of you, say it is impossible, for that would reflect on your intelligence. Mrs. Trevor-James would have Rupert at her feet in less than one hour. She is only forty-three, and indescribably charming. After she has tormented him to the edge of madness, she will dismiss him, and he will turn instinctively to Virginia for comfort and revenge, using against her the tactics he has learned from Mrs. Trevor James. It only remains to find a man who will afford Virginia similar treatment. That I admit is slightly more difficult. She has a certain subtlety not found in Rupert, or most men for that matter."

Lord Fordingbridge half closed his eyes.

"It needs a horse-soldier," he said at last, speaking as an ex-subaltern of the Thirtieth Hussars, more affectionately known as the Poppy-Shirts, from their habit of swimming in gore when on active service. "As a matter of fact I know the very man, and he's back from India on leave at this actual moment. His name is Geoffrey Forrester--one of the Sherwood Forresters, y'know. He's a major in the Guides Cavalry, but he's also been A.D.C. to the Viceroy, and Simla still talks about him, though it's years ago. He's only forty, and as good a polo-player as India has turned out since the mutiny. Shall I let him loose, Charles?"

Sir Charles shook his gray head.

"It would be better not to do that openly. Speaking from experience, I should say that Forrester, directly he landed, came up to London and began to rediscover the joys of his youth. By this time he will be ripe for a little quiet relaxation and the pursuits of the country. I suggest that you offer him, from me, the shooting at my Dorset place. You'd better explain that I can't offer to put him up because my ward is staying at the cottage to recover from an illness, that she is alone, practically unchaperoned, and is seeing no one at present. They will, however, make him very comfortable at the village inn. Short of casting him into Virginia's arms I can think of no more reliable scheme to make them acquainted. Solitude and natural curiosity will do the rest."

"My dear Charles," said Lord Fordingbridge simply, "upon my word I don't know how the diplomatic service exists without you. I should never have thought of that in a thousand years. I take it that you will arrange personally the little matter of Rupert and Mrs. Trevor-James?"

"I shall do myself the honor of calling on her to-morrow, George. Heigho! If only I were ten years younger!"

"My dear fellow, in that case you might be running your own neck into danger. As it is you're probably enjoying the exquisite bouquet of a delicate flirtation without the risk of a headache afterward," comforted Lord Fordingbridge.

The truth of this became manifest when Sir Charles sat, a very courtly figure, in the drawing-room of Mrs. Trevor-James' charming flat overlooking the park. She turned upon him caressing eyes and the witchery of a sinuous figure, allowing him a far greater indulgence because in his case she felt it did not matter in the very least. She found the situation most soothing in consequence.

"My delightful Charles," she said, in the golden voice which had ravished at least three generations, "if the young man must be lacerated I will use the knife according to my accustomed skill and bind up his wounds with tender fingers. In spite of that I shall send him away before they are healed. It is the healing that counts, as you and I know only too well."

"Agatha, you are incomparable," declared Sir Charles, smiling his admiration, dashed with a hint of pathos. "If only it were possible how gladly would I offer myself for vivisection!"

"I am convinced of it," replied Mrs. Trevor-James, daring to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth for the first and last time in her varied and interesting career.

To the little ears of Vingie, lingering at ten-thirty A.M. in her bed according to the license of a convalescent, came the far-off explosion of a shotgun. She paused with a teacup half-way to her mouth and glanced inquiringly at Mary who arranged deftly a simple country kit.

"That would be the strange gentleman, miss," commented Mary.

"What strange gentleman? There are no men here, Mary. That's the unique charm of the place. It allows us to be our dreadful natural selves."

Mary shook her pretty head meaningly.

"The gardener's wife told me, miss. Sir Charles has lent the shooting to a gentleman from India, a Major Forrester. He's staying down in the village at the White-Faced Goat. It does seem lonely for him, doesn't it?"

Vingie put down the teacup with a slight crash.

"How dare Charles do such a thing, when I came down here for peace, especially without telling me?" she demanded. "We brought the very oldest clothes I possess. Put out the knitted silk stockings, Mary. I loathe wool day after day. At any rate we need see nothing of this interloper."

"He generally goes home along that path that runs up from the wood at the back of the house, miss," said Mary casually.

"How do you know?"

"Well, miss, it's a bit lonely down here, and I thought it wouldn't do any harm just to look at a gentleman. I hid behind that hedge of wild-roses. You can see quite well from there."

Vingie glanced up from a careful scrutiny of her face in a hand-mirror. "You don't think this influenza has made me look any older, do you?" she inquired anxiously. "Be very careful not to attract the man's attention, Mary, and if he calls say I'm far too tired to see any one."

Roughly twenty-four hours later, Major Geoffrey Forrester, D.S.O., M.C, returning from the wild in pleasantly battered shooting kit, an old briar pipe skewed in the corner of his mouth, one of Belgium & Belgium's inimitable guns in the crook of his arm, beheld a curiously ravishing female figure sauntering toward him along the path that runs up from the wood at the back of the house. He thought he saw a dryad divorced from her selected tree, or Artemis weary of the chase, but it was merely the boy-girl figure of Vingie in a sports coat and brief tweed skirt. Even her knitted silk stockings, as the major observed with hawk eyes trained in the warfare of Waziristan, could not destroy the lovely lines of two slender legs.

The major removed his pipe from his mouth and his battered hat from his head and smiled a smile that has become legendary in Simla and Mussoorie.

"I beg your pardon," he said in his pleasant easy voice. "I shouldn't like you to think I'm trespassin'. Sir Charles Gillespie lent me the shootin' through George Fordingbridge, a dear old pal of mine. May I be allowed to hope that this beautiful air is doin' you good?"

Vingie looked at him with the slight pathos of an invalid and the mute suggestion that Providence might have sent her something better, except that she was too weak to care either way.

"Charles didn't mention the matter, but I'm quite sure it's all right. The air, as you say, is beautiful. I hope the fine weather will continue," she responded, and made as if to pass on.

"My name," pursued the major with placid perseverance, "is Geoffrey Forrester. I imagine you must be Miss Lauriston. It's a darned shame you had such a nasty touch of influenza. I was very distressed when George told me. I've kept well away from the house so that the noise of the gun shouldn't worry you. Is this your first day out-of-doors?"

"No," said Vingie listlessly. "Thank you for being so kind about the gun. I don't think I ought to stand talking----"

"Certainly not," declared her acquaintance firmly. "Extremely tryin' to stand about when one's rather under the weather. If you'll allow me I'll see you safely back to the house. I wish I could offer you the spoils of the chase, but it only amounted to a couple of bunnies."

"If there's one thing I loathe more than another it's rabbit in any shape or form," confessed Vingie, looking at him sadly. "I suppose you're staying at the inn. I believe the cooking is plain but satisfying. I'd ask you to luncheon only I don't suppose there's enough for two, and you'd hate invalid food, and I look like nothing on earth and I'm too tired to be amusing."

"Even a crust of bread with you would eclipse a banquet at the White-Faced Goat. If that's an invitation I'll do my poor best to amuse you," he answered with gentle humility, or so it appeared.

They passed together within the low-roofed dimness of Sir Charles' cottage. Vingie sank into an armchair and waved him toward the bell. "Mary," she commanded when that maiden appeared, "two cocktails, please, and tell cook Major Forrester is staying for luncheon." A little gleam lurked in her eyes. Major Forrester offered his cigarette-case with a faint sigh of satisfaction. She was, he thought, an adorable thing. Thank God his ripe experience would allow him to do her justice.

It came to pass that in those days Mary began to lift up her voice in thanksgiving, the atmosphere of intrigue and romance being incense in her nostrils. Also, pursuant to instructions, she wired to London for new frocks. Vingie had come simultaneously to the beginning of a campaign and the end of her wardrobe.

A week or so later she sat collapsed in an attractive heap on the cliff edge, gazing idly at the sunlit bay; beside her Geoffrey Forrester lay like a good-tempered dog, chewing, dog-like, a blade of grass. The pleasantly drowsy brain of Vingie revolved little problems: "Shall I make him kiss me and then beat him for it, and see what he's really like, or shall we drift on as we are? Do I really care what he's like? Am I sufficiently interested to make the effort? Isn't the sun heavenly? Shall I have my gold evening frock altered or leave it alone?"

"She's thinking what a delightful fellow I am--just thrillin' enough, but not too much. Some men are so aboriginal," reflected the major. "A nice little girl; sufficiently intelligent to appreciate one at one's modest value."

"Geoffrey," said Vingie suddenly, "why are you content to lead such a futile life?"

"Prettiest of pretty ladies, whatever do you mean?"

"I mean your little clockwork round: so many years in India, so much leave at home; a bit of shooting, a bit of racing, strictly limited flirtations with the women in whatever station your regiment's in; paying court to the general's lady; filling in your time inspecting horses' hoofs and men's buttons. What an existence!"

"It doesn't seem so bad sometimes," murmured the major. A little glint came into his eyes.

"'Oh, it drives me half crazy to think of the days I
Went slap for the Ghazi, my sword at my side;
When we rode hell-for-leather, two squadrons together,
And didn't care whether we lived or we died----'

sort of idea, you know. Common, but excitin' in a way."

"George Fordingbridge has influenced half Europe before now."

"George was brought up in the Poppy-Shirts--my old regiment. Many a time he's gone into the horse-trough after a guest night. We train up the children in the way they should go."

"At the best you'll never be more than an Inspector General of Cavalry--a sort of glorified veterinary surgeon and sergeant-major. You know, Geoffrey, a really pretty, ambitious girl would always have to refuse you. The prospect of sitting in some dusty Indian garrison losing her complexion and watching you play polo isn't wonderfully tempting, is it? Did you ever think of all that?"

"It isn't my way to go about askin' pretty girls to sacrifice themselves for me," explained the major with calm. "If they want to, and I want 'em to too, there isn't any sacrifice and there we are. If any wife of mine wouldn't turn up at a polo match I should just spank her because she'd belong to the regiment same as me."

"Unfortunately the modern girl doesn't permit herself to be spanked," said Vingie loftily.

"I ain't modern; I'm a soldier; one of the two oldest professions in the world," said the major.

"Do you suppose----" she began. He rose, took her two hands and lifted her gently to her feet.

"We will go for a little walk," he asserted. "You're tryin' to quarrel with me. It's your liver, and you need exercise. You ate too many chocs after luncheon. Come on--Walk-march!"

Somewhat to her own surprise, Vingie obeyed. The novelty brought quite a thrill. Besides this strange person seemed hardly to care whether she was pleased or not.

In her drawing-room, most intimately furnished, Mrs. Trevor-James surveyed Rupert Frack as some medieval craftsman might have surveyed a large lump of wood he proposed to carve into a historic mantelpiece. Her black gown loved every line of her sinuous form, her cabochon rings were large and wicked and her pearls were real. She possessed a skin of the shade often compared to a magnolia, and eyes alleged to be unfathomable by many who ought to have known better. The late Mr. Trevor-James had fathomed them quite easily because he used a string of pearls for a sounding line.

Rupert gloomed opposite her, and with the tiniest shrug she decided that his hour had struck.

"Rupert, my poor friend, you make me very sorry for you," she murmured. "You say that you love a girl, that you'll never love any one else, that she doesn't care two straws about you, and that you'll go on loving her till you die. I don't think your life is going to be very amusing."

"Men are like that," replied Rupert with sorrowful pride. "Women take everything and give nothing. If the positions were reversed I couldn't be so hard-hearted as she is. Besides, I should realize that such persistent devotion, unselfishness, and so on couldn't be surpassed by any other man. As things are, I must just be resigned. There's always my work."

"You wouldn't wish her to pretend, or be insincere," reproved Mrs. Trevor-James, and this hackneyed old phrase glided from her tongue with the ease born of infinite repetition. "At least she's honest with you. At least----"

"I don't care a damn if she's honest or not, as long as she won't let me kiss her and will let some other man some day," snarled Rupert. "Is any woman honest if it comes to that? You talk as though I were engaging a cashier! What has honesty got to do with it? She's only honest because it suits her. If she wanted me, and it were necessary, she'd lie like blazes!"

"And you propose to forego all kisses for ever and ever because one girl refuses to kiss? Well! well! What are those heavenly lines--

"'Oh, was it down in Samothrace
Beside the great Greek sea
That first I saw thy dreaming face
And swore thy slave to be?'

"You must be a wonderful lover, Rupert. Give me those cigarettes from the mantelpiece, there's a darling."

She motioned him to sit beside her on the Chesterfield, held up her face to the match, and smoked pensively. The mockery died out of her eyes, and a little sigh parted her lips.

"I s'pose it hurts like hell," she murmured, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. Her left hand drifted sidelong to his wrist. The soft contact appeared to soothe him. He made no effort to release himself.

Presently those lazy, trailing white fingers stole upward until they rested lightly on his dark head. She remained thus, smoking thoughtfully. He seemed very tired and sad. Her touch expressed sympathy and whether he knew it or not all his nerves cried out for it. He never perceived by what infinite degree her arm stole round his neck and drew him gently against her. His cheek brushed hers infinitely soft and fragrant, her hair held some intoxicating scent, she was very near, very lovable, very kind. She seemed the antithesis of all women who refused everything. She had the perfect gift of giving.

Rupert Frack realized her dark eyes looking into his, a great stillness, and the appeal of her lips. His resolution broke. He drooped his mouth against hers and kissed her with a sort of despairing passion. In a sense he did not kiss her at all; the mouth was hers and the kiss another's; but the second kiss, the third, and the rest belonged solely to Agatha Trevor-James. Presently she put a hand against his mouth and pushed him away. He sat up flooded with a childish lightness of heart. He could have sung and shouted. Some weary spell had been lifted.

"Oh!" exclaimed the golden voice in exquisite irony, yet not unkindly, "Oh valiant and consistent young man! What are those other lines, attributed to the same forgetful Crusader----

"'The Knights went forth upon the wave
To Christ, his sepulchre;
But I was traitor to the Grave,
Oh breast of rose and myrrh!'

"Now I think you'd better go. It's getting late, and you've stirred up my emotions. If I'm not careful I shan't sleep."

"My dear----" began Rupert, utterly contrite. She smiled back at him half wistfully; women are so greedy of romance and he was a very delightful boy.

"You shall do a penance for your sins and motor me down to Charles' Dorset cottage one day soon. I'm thinking of taking it for the autumn."

"But----" said Rupert, and flushed crimson.

"Am I so old and ugly that you refuse me the first request I ever made?" she demanded, and that clay which was man, modeled into a brute or an angel at her will, took the shape of repentance and acquiescence.

When he had gone she rose, touched her ruffled hair, went slowly to the telephone and rang up Sir Charles.

"He's cured from this hour," she announced. "Never more will she have quite that power over him. But oh, Charles, the kisses of these love-racked boys--(Did he kiss me? Of course he did. How could I save him otherwise?)--are very disturbing. I thought I was proof against all that, but is one ever? I wonder!"

She rang off, and Sir Charles also hung up the receiver. He stood for a moment, shook his head sadly and sighed. He sought again his armchair, picked up his book and stared into space.

"No!" he said at last, "one never is--never!"

"Charles," murmured Agatha Trevor-James to her soul, "wished me to take this rather attractive boy to Dorset and be seen in his company by the hard-hearted young woman who scorns him. I don't think it'll do any good and I shall feel like a baby-snatcher, but it's as Charles wills."

The car spun between summer hedges. Rupert's eyes wandered over the countryside and came back to Agatha.

"You're awfully good to me," he said. "I think that's what a man appreciates most in a woman--if she's good to him. It's so easy for them because we don't want very much, but they never are. I s'pose Virginia will be at the cottage?"

"Virginia--Charles' ward. Very charming I believe. Never met her. Yes, I suppose she will. Why?"

"Oh, nothing."

"If she holds up her little finger he'll run to her like a needle to a magnet, not because she's good to him but because she isn't," mused Agatha. "He looks on me as a fountain of perpetual goodness, flowing from a rock of ages to shelter him when these arrogant chits stab him with knives. My God, do I seem as old as that?"

They found Vingie and the major seated on the lawn. To Rupert she appeared baffled, and he had never known Vingie at a loss. The major wore that serene air peculiar to small boys who have done wrong and got away with it. Their expressions arose out of recent dialogue. To Vingie's plaint: "You don't care two-pence about my feelings; you just sit there and amuse yourself!" he had replied with gentle mockery: "Vingie, you're a darling, but a dreadfully spoiled darling. Sometimes I feel you weren't smacked enough as a child."

From this situation she raised her eyes to behold Rupert accompanied by a beautiful and sinuous woman armed with the prestige of a thousand past conquests. Over this apparition Rupert fussed a little self-consciously.

Calling up in herself all the valiant blood of the Lauristons, Vingie came forward to give a rendering of the perfect hostess. She even approached Agatha with a little air of deference, the tribute of the young girl to the elder woman, a grateful thing to both.

She did not, however, miss the glint which lighted the major's reckless blue eyes nor misunderstand when, later, he wandered with Agatha to the far side of the lawn.

"Dearest lady," he began, "do you remember those golden days when you were a guest of His Excellency at Simla?"

She tapped her white brow with a slender finger.

"I recall a certain somewhat attractive A.D.C. whom I had the grace not to marry."

"And now?"

"Now, I'm an unwanted widow."

He made a scornful sound. "Why do you waste yourself on that boy-cub full of green-sickness?"

"Because an old friend asked me to. Why are you idling with a wilful maiden young enough to be your daughter?"

"Because an old friend asked me to, and because I didn't know you were in town. Now I shall leave her to mew alone in the country."

"I've got to take my boy-cub back, but if you do return and he doesn't frighten you away I'll be awfully pleased to see you."

"Frighten me! Oh, pish!" said the major joyously. "Where in the whole of London will you be so adorable as to dine with me to-morrow night?"

Divided from them by some yards of turf, a generation or so, and a great deal of worldly wisdom, Vingie and Rupert sat side by side on a garden seat.

"My dear," began Vingie with simulated grief, "why have you stolen the only woman darling Charles ever really loved? They were so suited to each other!"

"She's been an absolute brick to me--more decent than any one else ever was. If it comes to that, why are you down here trying to conduct a flirtation with an elderly gentleman?"

"Simply a man to whom Charles lent the shooting. He called and one has to be civil. At least he was sympathetic about my illness. After all, my dear Rupert, there can be such a thing as friendship, between a man and a woman, little as you seem to think so."

Their eyes beheld Agatha and the major oblivious of all earthly cares, basking in each other's society. Vingie turned to Rupert and Rupert to Vingie. Their young natures demanded mutely the answer to the riddle.

"Well," said Rupert heavily at last, "I suppose Agatha and I ought to start if we mean to reach town in time for dinner."