telegrams this instant from Paris, messieurs! I
salute you." And he took off his peaked cap, adding, as he saw
the others, "Messieurs, mesdames," and nodded his curly, blond
head and smiled.

"Don't apologize--read your telegrams!" said Lady Hesketh; "dear
me! dear me! if they take you two away and leave Thorald, I
shall--I shall yawn!"

Ricky's broad face changed as he read his despatch; and Molly
Hesketh, shamelessly peeping over his shoulder, exclaimed, "It's
cipher! How stupid! Can you understand it, Ricky?"

Yes, Rickerl von Elster understood it well enough. He paled a
little, thrust the crumpled telegram into his pocket, and looked
vaguely at the circle of faces. After a moment he said, standing
very straight, "I must leave to-morrow morning."

"Recalled? Confound your ambassador, Ricky!" said Sir Thorald.
"Recalled to Paris in midsummer! Well, I'm--"

"Not to Paris," said Rickerl, with a curious catch in his
voice--"to Berlin. I join my regiment at once."

Jack Marche, who had been studying his telegram with puzzled
eyes, held it out to Sir Thorald.

"Can't make head or tail of it; can you?" he demanded.

Sir Thorald took it and read aloud: "New York _Herald_ offers you
your own price and all expenses. Cable, if accepted."

"'Cable, if accepted,'" repeated Betty Castlemaine; "accept
what?"

"Exactly! What?" said Jack. "Do they want a story? What do
'expenses' mean? I'm not going to Africa again if I know it."

"It sounds as though the _Herald_ wanted you for some expedition;
it sounds as if everybody knew about the expedition, except you.
Nobody ever hears any news at Morteyn," said Molly Hesketh,
dejectedly. "Are you going, Jack?"

"Going? Where?"

"Does your telegram throw any light on Jack's, Ricky?" asked Sir
Thorald.

But Rickerl von Elster turned away without answering.

III

SUMMER THUNDER

When the old vicomte was well enough to entertain anybody at all,
which was not very often, he did it skilfully. So when he filled
the Chateau with young people and told them to amuse themselves
and not bother him, the house-party was necessarily a success.

He himself sat all day in the sunshine, studying the week's Paris
newspapers with dim, kindly eyes, or played interminable chess
games with his wife on the flower terrace.

She was sixty; he had passed threescore and ten. They never
strayed far from each other. It had always been so from the
first, and the first was when Helen Br