note round in the morning, with the exact
name of your house, and some idea of the road we must follow, so that
we do not get lost. I suppose you two," she added, turning to Forrest
and Lord Ronald, "will not mind starting a day or two before we had
planned?"

"Not in the least," they assured her.

"And Miss Le Mesurier?" Cecil de la Borne asked. "Will she really not
mind giving up some of these wonderful entertainments?"

Jeanne smiled upon him brilliantly. It was a smile which came so
seldom, and which, when it did come, transformed her face so utterly,
that she seemed like a different person.

"I shall be very glad, indeed," she said, "to leave London. I am
looking forward so much to seeing what the English country is like."

"It will make me very happy," Cecil de la Borne said, bowing over her
hand, "to try and show you."

Her eyes seemed to pass through him, to look out of the crowded room,
as though indeed they had found their way into some corner of the world
where the things which make life lie. It was a lapse from which she
recovered almost immediately, but when she looked at him, and with a
little farewell nod withdrew her hand, the transforming gleam had
passed away.

"And there is the sea, too," she remarked, looking backwards as they
passed out. "I am longing to see that again."

CHAPTER III

Perhaps there was never a moment in the lives of these two men when
their utter and radical dissimilarity, physically as well as in the
larger ways, was more strikingly and absolutely manifest. Like a great
sea animal, huge, black-bearded, bronzed, magnificent, but uncouth,
Andrew de la Borne, in the oilskins and overalls of a village
fisherman, stood in the great bare hall in front of the open fireplace,
reckless of his drippings, at first only mildly amused by the half
cynical, half angry survey of the very elegant young man who had just
descended the splendid oak staircase, with its finely carved
balustrade, black and worm-eaten, Cecil de la Borne stared at his
brother with the angry disgust of one whose sense of all that is
holiest stands outraged. Slim, of graceful though somewhat undersized
figure, he was conscious of having attained perfection in matters which
he reckoned of no small importance. His grey tweed suit fitted him like
a glove, his tie was a perfect blend between the colour of his eyes and
his clothes, his shoes were of immaculate shape and polish, his socks
had been selected wit