"Certainly," said Pateley, with a new admiration for Rachel rising
within him, but with some misgivings, however, as to the possibility or
the desirability of running Stamfordham to earth among his present
surroundings.

"Do you know where he is?" Rachel said.

"I should think probably at the bazaar," said Pateley, and as he
reflected on the scene he had just left, Stamfordham surrounded by a
bevy of attractive ladies beseeching him to give them an autograph, to
buy a buttonhole, to drink their tea, to put into their raffles, and to
have his fortune told, he felt still more dubious as to the mission he
was engaged upon. Fortunately Rachel realised none of these things.

"Come, then, let us go," she said, with a vibrating anxiety and
excitement, at strange variance with the usual atmosphere that
surrounded her, and he followed her out of the garden in the direction
of the Casino.

CHAPTER XXVI

Pateley, who had been caught up in some measure into the excitement of
Rachel's emotion, was brought back to earth again with a run, as he
passed with her through the brightly coloured hangings which drooped
over the portals of the bazaar and found themselves in the gay crowd
within. His misgivings grew as he felt more and more the incongruity of
the errand they were bent upon to the preoccupations of the people who
surrounded them. There was no doubt that, whatever the ultimate result
as far as Mrs. Birkett and the needs she represented were concerned, the
bazaar, that subsidiary consideration apart, was being very successful
indeed. The sound of voices and laughter filled the air, and the gloomy
previsions Lady Chaloner had felt as to the lack of buyers were
apparently not realised, since the whole of the available space
surrounded by the stalls was filled with people engaged in some sort of
very active and voluble commercial transactions with one another which,
financial result or not, were of a most enjoyable kind, to judge by the
bursts of laughter they necessitated. Rachel, pale, strung up, with the
look of determination in her face called up in the usually timid by an
unwonted resolve, was making her way, or rather trying to do so, in
Pateley's wake, bewildered by the sights and sounds around her. Pateley
at each step was beset by some laughing vendor from whom he had much ado
to escape, and indeed in most cases did not succeed in doing so without
having paid toll. By the time he had gone half along the room h