tions. You must know how delighted I am." She kissed her
enthusiastically. "We will expect you at dinner?" she said
tentatively. "Or will you come with me now?" She thought a second.
"I don't know whether I told you I was to take Prince Koltsoff motoring
this afternoon--unchaperoned."

"Why, Anne, if you are going to bother about me that way, I 'll
withdraw my request. Please don't let me interfere in any way. I
couldn't possibly go before late in the afternoon, in any event."

"That will be fine then," said Anne, holding out her hand. "_Au
revoir_. I 'll send the car for you after we return."

After she had gone, Mrs. Van Valkenberg stood watching the car until it
disappeared, and then snatching her bright-eyed Pomeranian, she ran her
fingers absently through his soft hair.

"How ridiculous," she said, "how absolutely ridiculous!"

CHAPTER XII

MISS HATCH SHOWS SHE LOVES A LOVER

When Armitage entered the servants' dining-room he found the head
footman, who presided, in something of a quandary as to where he should
place him. Emilia, Miss Wellington's maid, had of course lost no time
in imparting to all with whom she was on terms of confidence, that the
new chauffeur was the same with whom her mistress had flirted on the
_General_. Consequently, Armitage was at once the object of interest,
suspicion, respect, and jealousy. But the head footman greeted him
cordially enough and after shifting and rearranging seats, indicated a
chair near the lower end of the table, which Armitage accepted with a
nod. He was immensely interested.

The talk was of cricket. Some of the cottagers whose main object in
life was aping the ways of the English, had organized a cricket team,
and as there were not enough of them for an opposing eight, they had
been compelled to resort to the grooms. There were weekly matches in
which the hirelings invariably triumphed. One of the Wellington
grooms, an alert young cockney, was the bowler, and his success, as
well as the distinguished social station of his opponents, appeared to
Armitage to have quite turned his pert little head.

There was a pretty Irish chambermaid at Jack's elbow whose eyes were as
gray as the stones in the Giants' Causeway, but glittering now with
scorn. For heretofore, Henry Phipps had been an humble worshipper.
She permitted several of his condescending remarks to pass without
notice, but finally when he answered a question put by another groom