of Westmore,
Garry and Thessalie crossed like lightning, then their attention
became riveted on this tall, graceful, romantic looking man of early
middle age, who was being lionised at Northbrook.

The next moment Garry stepped back beside Dulcie Soane, who had turned
white as a flower and was gazing at Skeel as though she had seen a
ghost.

"Do you suppose he can be the same man your mother knew?" he
whispered, dropping his arm and taking her trembling hand in a firm
clasp.

"I don't know.... I seem to feel so.... I can't explain to you how it
pierced my heart--the sound of his name.... Oh, Garry!--suppose it is
true--that he is the man my mother knew--and cared for!"

Before he could speak, cocktails were served, and Adolf Gerhardt, a
large, bearded, pompous man, engaged him in explosive conversation:

"Yes, this fellow Corot Mandel is producing a new spectacle-play on my
lawn to-morrow evening. Your family and your guests are invited, of
course. And for the dance, also----" He included Dulcie in a pompous
bow, finished his cocktail with another flourish:

"You will find my friend Skeel very attractive," he went on. "You know
who he is?--_the_ Murtagh Skeel who writes those Irish poems of the
West Coast--and is not, I believe, very well received in England just
now--a matter of nationalism--patriotism, eh? Why should it surprise
your Britisher, eh?--if a gentleman like Murtagh Skeel displays no
sympathy for England?--if a gentleman like my friend, Sir Roger
Casement, prefers to live in Germany?"

Garry, under his own roof, said pleasantly:

"It wouldn't do for us to discuss those things, I fear, Mr. Gerhardt.
And your Irish lion seems to be very gentle and charming. He must be
fascinating to women."

Gerhardt threw up his hands:

"Oh, Lord! They would like to eat him! Or be eaten by him! You know?
It is that way always between the handsome poet and the sex. Which
eats which is of no consequence, so long as they merge. Eh?" And his
thunderous laughter set the empty glasses faintly ringing on the
butler's silver tray.

Garry spoke to Mrs. Gerhardt, a large, pallid, slabby German who might
have been somebody's kitchen maid, but had been born a _von_.

Later, as dinner was announced, he contrived to speak to Thessalie
aside:

"Gerhardt," he whispered, "doesn't recognise you, of course."

"No; I'm not at all apprehensive."

"Yet, it was on his yacht----"

"He never even looked twice at me. You know w