y enough as they stood waiting for their
luggage, but Jacob fancied that there was a shade of reserve in her
manner.

"I couldn't wait till you got to London to hear all about it," she
declared. "I must have the whole story."

"At dinner time," Jacob suggested. "Only you must promise that you
won't laugh too much at the poor guileless Britisher who would
probably have been sharked of a hundred thousand pounds in New York,
but for Felix."

The girl's eyes danced with pleasure.

"You really mean that he was useful?"

"I can assure you--"

"Chuck that," the young man interrupted gruffly. "Non-stop run down, I
suppose, Mary?"

His sister looked a little dubious.

"I had to stop a few times for repairs," she admitted, "and two
policemen told me I should be summoned for making that awful noise."

"A wonderful engine," Felixstowe declared, "but it needs a master
hand."

"It needs a silencer more than anything," Jacob commented.

"Are you going to ride up with us in the dickey to-morrow?" Lady Mary
asked.

"I am not," Jacob replied firmly. "I have wired for my own car."

"Race you up for a tenner, old bean," Felixstowe suggested promptly.

"I wouldn't imperil Lady Mary's existence," Jacob replied,--"that is,
unless she rode with me."

"No fear," the young man scoffed. "Mary would never desert the old tin
kettle, as you call it."

"I rather like the smoothness of a Rolls-Royce," she murmured.

Over dinner that evening, their adventures in New York were recounted
at length. It was not until her brother had wandered out to get some
cigarettes, however, that Lady Mary referred to the subject which all
three seemed to have been avoiding.

"It must have been rather a shock to you, I am afraid, to meet Captain
and Mrs. Penhaven on the steamer," she remarked sympathetically.

"I thought it was going to be," he admitted. "It didn't turn out that
way."

"Are you very broken-hearted?"

"Are you?"

"I didn't give myself the chance," she replied, "When I found that
things were going wrong between Maurice and me, I just told him so."

"But you did care for him very much, didn't you?" he ventured.

She considered the matter indifferently.

"I suppose I did once, in a way," she decided. "He was rather a dear,
but a very obvious person in many respects. I always felt I knew
exactly what he was going to do or say, and that does get so
irritating. I am perfectly certain that we should have led a
cat-and-dog life