mere
sight of them makes me taste all the dust I have swallowed between
here and London. Don't you think it would be real cute to remain here
to-night and run into Hereford to-morrow after an early cup of tea?"

Cynthia need not have taken the trouble to avert her scarlet face from
Mrs. Devar's inquisitive eyes; indeed, Mrs. Devar herself was glad
that her quick-witted and perhaps quick-tempered young friend had not
surprised the wry smile that twisted her own lips.

"Just as you please, Cynthia," said she amiably.

Then the girl resolutely crushed the absurd emotion that led her to
shirk her companion's scrutiny: she was so taken aback by this
unexpected complaisance in a quarter where she was prepared for
opposition that she turned and laid a grateful hand on the other
woman's arm.

"Now that is perfectly sweet of you," she said softly. "I would just
love to see that river by moonlight, and--and--I fancied you were a
bit weary of the road. It wouldn't matter if the country were not so
wonderful, but when one has to screw one's head round quickly or one
misses a castle or a prize landscape, a hundred miles of that sort of
thing becomes a strain."

"This seems to be quite a restful place," agreed Mrs. Devar. "Have
you--er--told Fitzroy of the proposed alteration in our arrangements?"

Cynthia grew interested in the yachts again.

"No," she said, "I've not mentioned it to him--yet."

A maid-servant entered, and Cynthia inquired if the hotel could
provide three rooms for her party.

The girl, a pretty Celt of the fair-haired type, said she was sure
there was accommodation.

"Then," said Cynthia, with what she felt to be a thoroughly
self-possessed air, "please ask my chauffeur if he would like another
cup of tea, and tell him to house the car and have our boxes sent in,
as we shall stay here till half-past eight to-morrow morning."

Mrs. Devar's letter to Peter Vanrenen forthwith entered the category
of things that must be done at the earliest opportunity. She wrote it
before dinner, taking a full hour in the privacy of her room to
compose its few carefully considered sentences. She posted it, too,
and was confirmed in her estimate of its very real importance when she
saw a muslined Cynthia saunter out and join "Fitzroy," who happened to
be standing on a tiny landing-stage near a boathouse.

Yet, so strangely constituted is human nature of the Devar variety,
she would have given half the money she possesse