ar in another evening toilet--one that was quite as lovely, though
scarcely so striking, as that which her husband had so admired the
previous night. He clearly appreciated her efforts to maintain her
loveliness in his eyes, and their little dinner was a very pleasant one.

He told her that he had learned that the yacht _Water Nymph_ would put
in to Leith before crossing the North Sea, and that he had written to
Herbert Courtland at that port to return without delay.

"You did wrong," said she; and she felt that she was speaking the truth.

"I don't think so," he replied. "At any rate, you may rest perfectly
certain that Herbert will receive my letter with gratitude."

And Mr. Linton's judgment on this point was not in error. Herbert
Courtland received, on the evening of the third day after leaving
Southampton, the letter which called him back to London, and he
contrived to conceal whatever emotion he may have felt at the
prospect of parting from his shipmates. They accompanied him ashore,
however--they had worn out six packs of cards already, and were about
to buy another dozen or two, to see them safely through the imposing
scenery of the Hardanger Fjord.

The next day he was in London, and it was on the evening of that same
day that he came face to face with the Rev. George Holland outside Miss
Ayrton's drawing room.

CHAPTER XXV.

LIES! LIES! LIES!

"You should have come a little sooner," said Phyllis quite pleasantly.
"Mr. Courtland was giving me such an amusing account of his latest
voyage. Will you have tea or iced coffee?"

"Tea, if you please," said George Holland, also quite pleasantly. "Has
Mr. Courtland been on another voyage of discovery? What has he left
himself to discover in the world of waters?"

"I think that what he discovered on his latest voyage was the effect
of a banjo on the human mind," laughed Phyllis. "He was aboard Lord
Earlscourt's yacht, the _Water Nymph_. Some other men were there also.
One of them had an idea that he could play upon the banjo. He was wrong,
Mr. Courtland thinks."

"A good many people are subject to curious notions of the same type.
They usually take an optimistic view of the susceptibilities of
enjoyment of their neighbors--not that there is any connection between
enjoyment and a banjo."

"Mr. Courtland said just now that when Dr. Johnson gave it as his
opinion that music was, of all noises, the least disagreeable, the banjo
had not been invented."

"