he new
arrivals that day, whom, in the informal and easy courtesy of the
house, he had met with no further introduction than a vague smile. He
remembered, too, that the stranger had glanced at him once or twice at
dinner, with shy but engaging reserve.

"You must see such a lot of people, and the way things are arranged
and settled here everybody expects to look and act like everybody
else, don't you know, so you can't tell one chap from another. Deuced
annoying, eh? That's where you Americans are different, and that's
why those countrywomen of yours were so charming, don't you know, so
original. We were all together on the top of a coach in Scotland, don't
you remember? Had such a jolly time in the beastly rain. You didn't
catch my name. It's Duncaster."

The consul at once recalled his former fellow-traveler. The two men
shook hands. The Englishman took a pipe from his smoking-jacket, and
drew a chair beside the consul.

"Yes," he continued, comfortably filling his pipe, "the daughter,
Miss Kirkby, was awfully good fun; so fresh, so perfectly natural and
innocent, don't you know, and yet so extraordinarily sharp and clever.
She had some awfully good chaff over that Scotch scenery before those
Scotch tourists, do you remember? And it was all so beastly true, too.
Perhaps she's with you here?"

There was so much unexpected and unaffected interest in the young
Englishman's eyes that the consul was quite serious in his regrets that
the ladies had gone back to Paris.

"I'd like to have taken them over to Audrey Edge from here. It's no
distance by train. I did ask them in Scotland, but I suppose they had
something better to do. But you might tell them I've got some sisters
there, and that it is an old place and not half bad, don't you know,
when you write to them. You might give me their address."

The consul did so, and added a few pleasant words regarding their
position,--barring the syndicate,--which he had gathered from Custer.
Lord Duncaster's look of interest, far from abating, became gently
confidential.

"I suppose you must see a good deal of your countrymen in your business,
and I suppose, just like Englishmen, they differ, by Jove! Some of them,
don't you know, are rather pushing and anxious for position, and all
that sort of thing; and some of 'em, like your friends, are quite
independent and natural."

He stopped, and puffed slowly at his pipe. Presently he took it from
his mouth, with a little laugh.