stood the Duchess,
Lady Vale-Avon, Carmona, Dick, and the Cherub. Monica and Pilar had been
talking at a distance with a young girl of the house, but seeing me
gravitate in their direction, Lady Vale-Avon called her daughter.

"The ladies are saying they can't stay here," announced Dick, his voice in
sympathy with a twinkle in his eyes.

"I'm not saying so," cut in Monica. "I think it will be fun; a real
adventure. The landlady's wonderful, and all her daughters and nieces
beauties. If we're nice to them, they'll be adorable to us."

"The place is a den!" exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. "There must be something
better in the town."

"I'm afraid there isn't," said the Duke. "This accident has made me
helpless. I'm horribly sorry; but we can't get on anywhere else to-night."

"We can sit up," said the Duchess, "in the automobile."

"Do let's look at the rooms," begged Monica. "And don't let them see we're
finding fault. Their feelings will be hurt."

"What nonsense!" replied Lady Vale-Avon. "As if they had feelings!"

"If you don't consider them, they won't take pains to make you
comfortable," I said, knowing by instinct the people with whom we had to
deal. "They're beginning to suspect already that something's wrong, and
judging from the expression of their faces it will take only a little more
for the landlord to say he has no rooms. Then we really may have to sit in
the automobiles."

The keeper of the _fonda_ and his family, who had come so warmly to
welcome the strangers, were now hovering aloof, silent and suspicious,
their spirits dashed by the contemptuous looks of Lady Vale-Avon and the
Duchess. Standing in semi-darkness, the landlord's face was a blur of
brown shadow, featureless, save for a pair of enormous eyes burning with
an emotion which was no longer hospitality. His wife, whose broad shoulder
was pressed against her husband's as if to form a line of defence, was a
dark-browed, gypsy-like woman, who must once have been beautiful, and
might now be formidable. Behind them were grouped a handsome boy, and
three or four extraordinarily pretty girls with red and white roses in
their hair.

"They wouldn't dare turn us out!" exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. "They can
never have had persons of our sort before."

"If you asked, they'd probably retort that Dukes and Marquesses were thick
as blackberries," said I.

She glanced at Carmona, hoping for support, but he shrugged his shoulders
in despair; and a look from