n, she suggested the Tyringham.

"You know, I want very much to see Mr. Bashford's old home and the place
all our veteran retainers came from. At one?--yes. Good night!" ...

Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth reached the Tyringham on time to the minute.
As I had spent the morning on a bench in the park, analyzing my
problems, I found their good humor a trifle jarring.

"You don't seem a bit glad to see us," Alice complained as she drew off
her gloves. "How can any one be anything but happy after seeing that
delicious 'Cock Robin'! It is so deliciously droll."

"I haven't," I remarked with an attempt at severity, "quite your knack
of ignoring disagreeable facts. There was Montani right in front of me,
jumping like a jack-in-the-box every time you flourished your fan.
There's that fellow we've got locked up at Barton----"

"Just hear the man, Constance!" she interrupted with her adorable laugh.
"We were thinking that he was beginning to see things our way, the only
true way, the jolly way, and here he cometh like a melancholy Jaques!
We'll have none of it!"

"We must confess," said Mrs. Farnsworth conciliatingly, "that Mr.
Singleton is passing through a severe trial. We precipitated ourselves
upon him without warning, and immediately involved him in a mesh of
mystery. His imagination must have time to adjust itself."

"Ah, the imagination!" sighed Alice with her wistful smile. "How little
patience the world has with anything but the soberest facts! Why should
we bother about that lunatic Montani or the gentleman immured in the
tool-house? I couldn't introduce you to Sir Cecil without anticipating
the end of our story; and I want you to keep wondering and wondering
about us. It's all so jolly! I love it all! And really you wouldn't
spoil it, Bob! It's dreadful to spoil things."

They were spoiling my appetite; I was perfectly aware of that. I had
ordered the best luncheon I knew how to compose, and they were doing
full justice to it; but I was acting, I knew, like a resentful boy.

"I love you that way," said Alice as I stared vacantly at my plate. "But
you really are not making yourself disagreeable to us--really he is not,
Constance!"

Mrs. Farnsworth affirmed this. I knew that I was merely being rude, and
the consciousness of this was not uplifting. At the luncheon hour the
influx of shoppers gives the Tyringham a cheery tone, and all about us
were people apparently conversing sanely and happily. The appearance of
Un