t
have thought you had driven into a camp of savages!"

"Not for worlds would I have missed that," she exclaimed with a merry
laugh. "It was perfectly delicious! And it was all my fault. I meant to
remain a day at Hartford, you know, and send a message to Mr. Torrence
from there, but I found that by pushing on I could reach here yesterday.
Then the machine I hired showed every weakness that motors are subject
to and we were hours later than the Hartford garage man promised. And
you know we English always expect strange things to happen in America. I
don't understand yet why those people at the gates were so jolly
anxious to kill us; but it doesn't matter; you would only spoil the joke
by explaining it."

However, I did my best--it was a weak attempt--to explain the
nervousness of the veteran servants and their display of violence. Her
arrival made it likely that we should soon know more about the "parties"
whose visits and inquiries had so alarmed Antoine and his comrades. Now
that I saw Mrs. Bashford the idea that any one could entertain
malevolent designs upon her was more preposterous than ever, and I
resolved that she must be shielded from annoyances of every kind. I told
her with all the humor I could throw into the recital of the drilling of
the bell-hops and of the uncomfortable relations between the Allied
forces and the Teutonic minority on the estate.

"It was dear of Mr. Bashford to provide a home for these people; wasn't
he really the kindest soul that ever lived?" she said softly.

She gazed wistfully seaward, and I saw the gleam of tears on her long
lashes. My uncle had, then, meant something to her! No one, in speech
or manner, could have suggested the adventuress less; Uncle Bash was a
gentleman, a man of aesthetic tastes, and the girl was adorable. More
remarkable things had happened in the history of love and marriage than
that two such persons, meeting in a far corner of the world, would
honestly care for each other. My respect for Uncle Bash grew; he had
married the most attractive girl in the world, and here she was with the
bloom of her girlhood upon her, tripping alone through a world that
might have been created merely that she might confer light and cheer
upon it.

"You stopped at Hartford," I began, breaking a long silence. "You have
friends there----?"

"Not one! I had made a pious pilgrimage to Mark Twain's last home at
Redding, and, hearing that he had lived at Hartford, I came throug