_ don't? I'm glad, for you're both men. If you don't suspect,
why should he?"

"You'll have to tell me what you're driving at. I shan't have an easy
minute till you do--and that means I can't write. You know I won't give
you away."

"A woman wouldn't need telling. That's why I like men! You never
guessed, then, that I've been doing it all? I was the power behind the
throne. I made him invite us, and----"

"The deuce you did! Why, I heard him ask you. It was on board ship,
and----"

"And before he asked, unless you were deaf, you heard me say I couldn't
work up any enthusiasm about the next book we'd promised our publisher
to write because we'd sold our last car and hadn't time to make up our
minds about a new one, and we had no friends to give us good 'tips'
about the country. It was then he asked me what country we wanted to
write about, and I said Scotland."

"Well, yes, I suppose I heard you say all that, now you remind me of it.
But it wasn't hinting, because you didn't know he was going to Scotland
for his rest cure."

"Oh, yes, I did. I read it in the New York _Sun_ before we sailed. And
when I said we'd accept his invitation if he'd accept ours, Mrs. Keeling
hadn't offered me this house."

"You said she had."

"I was sure she would, because she told me I had only to ask. She was
dying to lend it. She wanted to be able to tell everybody that Aline
West and Basil Norman lived in her house for a fortnight in August. It's
a great feather in her cap; and Ian Somerled coming to visit us here is
something she'll _never_ get over as long as she lives. I marconied her
an hour after he'd said that he would come to us after London, and we'd
begin our motor tour from Carlisle. 'Twas only taking Time by the
forelock to tell him we _had_ been invited. It _was_ bad luck poor Mrs.
Keeling being ill when she got my wire, and she really was a trump to
turn out and go to a nursing home."

"Good heavens, is that what she did? I didn't know----"

"Of course not. But you needn't mind so dreadfully. She's _much_ more
comfortable in the nursing home with the best attention than in her own.
And, as a reward, we'll dedicate the book to her."

Aline said this as a queen might have suggested lending her crown to a
loyal servitor. Basil laughed, rather uncomfortably, and his sister
looked up hastily into his face, to see if he were making fun of her.
Just then they were drawing near the open windows of the drawing-room,
and th