"It only shows, my dear Dick," his sister observed, "you may quite easily
run risks in giving a semi-public dance in your own house."

Morriston laughed. "Oh, come, Edith," he protested, "we need not make too
much of it. We don't know for certain that the man was a queer
character."

"One finds objectionable swaggerers everywhere," Painswick put in.

"Anyhow," said Kelson, "if this Henshaw was a bad lot he had the decency
to efface himself promptly enough. The puzzle is, what on earth has
become of him?"

"I don't know, Mr. Gifford," Morriston said as the two friends were
leaving, "whether you would care for a ramble over the old place. A man
named Piercy has written to me for permission to go over the house; he
is, it appears, writing a book on the antiquities of the county. I have
asked him to luncheon to-morrow, and we shall be delighted if you and
Kelson will join us as a preliminary to a personally conducted tour of
the house. Charlie Tredworth and his sister are coming over for a week's
stay, so we shall be quite a respectable party."

Naturally Kelson accepted the invitation with alacrity, and Gifford could
do no less than fall in with the arrangement.

"Hope you won't mind going over to Wynford," Kelson said as they drove
back. "If it is at all painful to you from old associations, I'll make an
excuse for you."

Gifford hesitated a moment. "Oh, no," he answered. "I'll come. There is
no use in being sentimental about the place going out of our family, and
these Morristons are quite the right sort of people to have it. A
splendidly thoroughbred type of girl, Miss Morriston."

Kelson laughed. "Oh, yes; a magnificent creature; cut out for a duchess.
Only, you know, my dear Hugh, if I married a woman like that I should
always be a little afraid of her. A magnificent chatelaine and all that,
but too cold for my taste."

"You think there is no deep feeling under the ice of her manner?"

"I don't know," Kelson replied, as though the idea was quite novel to
him. "Never got so far as to think of that. I like a girl with whom you
can get on without going through the process of thawing her first. And
with Edith Morriston I should say it would be a slow process. Anyhow, she
is just the girl for Painswick, who is evidently after her."

"I should say that with him the ice is a little below the surface,"
Gifford ventured.

Kelson laughed. "You've hit it, Hugh. He's easy enough, but scratch him
and you come upon a