she was no reader,
or in days to come she might have parodied Pope's "Epistle to Dr.
Arbuthnot":

Why did I write? What sin to me unknown
Dipped me in ink?--my parents', or my own?

Not content with her outpouring to Devar she dashed off a warning to
Marigny. She imagined that the Frenchman would grin at his broken
fortunes, and look about for another heiress! And so, abandoning a
meal to the fever of scribbling, she packed more mischief into an hour
than any elderly marriage-broker in Europe that day, and waddled off
to the letterbox with a sense of consolation, strong in the belief
that the morrow would bring telegrams to guide her in the fray with
Mrs. Leland.

Medenham sent a short note to his father, saying that he would reach
London about midnight next day and asking him to invite Aunt Susan to
lunch on Tuesday. Then he waited in vain for sight of Cynthia until,
driven to extremes by tea-time, he got one of the maids to take her a
verbal message, in which he stated that the climb to the summit of the
Yat could be made in half an hour.

The reply was deadening.

"Miss Vanrenen says she is busy. She does not intend to leave the
hotel to-day; and will you please have the car ready at eight o'clock
to-morrow morning."

Then Medenham smiled ferociously, for he had just ascertained that the
local telegraph office opened at eight.

"Kindly tell Miss Vanrenen that we had better make a start some few
minutes earlier, because we have a long day's run before us," he said.

And he hummed a verse of "Young Lochinvar" as he moved away, thereby
provoking the maid-servant to an expression of opinion that some folk
thought a lot of themselves--but as for London shuffers and their
manners--well there!

CHAPTER XII

MASQUES, ANCIENT AND MODERN

The clouds did not lift until Cynthia was standing in front of that
remarkable Map of the World which reposes behind oaken doors in the
south aisle of Hereford Cathedral. During the run from Symon's Yat,
not even a glorious sun could dispel the vapors of that unfortunate
Sunday. Cynthia had smiled a "Good-morning" when she entered the car,
but beyond one quick glance around to see if the deputy chauffeur was
in attendance--which Medenham took care he should not be--she gave no
visible sign of yesterday's troubles, though her self-contained manner
showed that they were present in her thoughts.

Mrs. Devar tried to be gracious, and only succeeded in being stil