much."

"But then there's the lady. Perhaps she----"

"Between ourselves, I fancy he thinks he's waited long enough."

I had the same impression, but my mind had wandered back to another
point.

"When did you see Octon?" I asked.

"I trotted Aunt Sarah down to that place--what's it called?--where the
Institute offices are. Aunt Sarah's got very keen on the Institute; she
must mean to queer it somehow, I think! Well, Octon was there, talking
to the clerk. She cut him dead, of course--marched by the pair of them
with her head up. Powers ran after her, and I addressed an observation
to Octon. You remember that little spar we had?"

"At the Flower Show? Yes, I remember."

"I was a bit fresh then," he confessed candidly, "and perhaps he wasn't
so far wrong to sit on me. But the beggar's got a rough way of doing it.
Well, it didn't seem civil to say nothing, so I said, 'I haven't had
that thrashing yet, and I'm getting a bit too big for it, like you, Mr.
Octon.'"

"Was that your idea of something civil?" I felt constrained to ask.

"He didn't mind," Lacey assured me. "But he said a funny thing. He
grinned at me quite kindly and said, 'You're just coming to the size for
something much worse.' What do you think he meant by that, Austin?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"He's a bounder--at least he must be, or he'd never have done that to
Susie Aspenick; but he's got his points, I think. I tell you what, I
shouldn't so much mind serving under him. One don't mind being sat on by
the C. O."

"What was happening between Lady Sarah and Powers all this time?" I
asked.

"Lord bless you, I don't know!" he answered scornfully. "Institute, I
suppose! I should be inclined to call the Institute rot if Miss Driver
wasn't founding it. At any rate Aunt Sarah and Powers--rather like a
beach photographer, isn't he?--seem as thick as thieves." He finished
off his whisky and soda. "Well, women must do something, I suppose," he
remarked. "Shall we go and beat up the governor?"

He was impatient. I yielded, although I did not think that "the
governor" would be ready for us yet; I thought that, if Lord Fillingford
was to gain his cause that afternoon, he was in for a long interview
with Jenny. Evidently Lacey meant to wait. I was game to wait with him.
In these days I was all suspicion--on the alert for danger. It made me
uneasy to hear that Lady Sarah and Powers were "thick as thieves."
Mentally I paused to acknowledge the exquisit