t two wives?"

Urquhart's eyes met his with an extenuating look. "It was some time
ago, you see," he said; and then, passing it off, "There are as many
as you like out there. Dozens."

Lancelot absorbed this explanation through the eyes. You could see
them at it, chewing it like a cud. He was engrossed in it--Lucy
watched him. "I say--two wives!" and then, giving it up, with a savage
attack he bit into his apple and became incoherent. One cheek bulged
dangerously and required all his present attention. Finally, after a
time of high tension, Urquhart's wives and the apple were bolted
together, and given over to the alimentary juices. The Turk in the
almond-tree was lost sight of, and no one knows why he was there, or
how he was got out--if indeed he ever was. For all that, Urquhart
finished his story to his two ladies; but Lucy paid him divided
attention, being more interested in her Lancelot than in Urquhart's
Turk.

Francis Lingen, at the other table, kept a cold eye upon the easy man
who was to provide him with ready money, as he hoped. He admired ease
as much as anybody, and believed that he had it. But he was very much
in love with Lucy, and felt the highest disapproval of Urquhart's kind
of spread-eagle hardihood. He bent over his plate like the
willow-tree upon one. His eyelids glimmered, he was rather pink, and
used his napkin to his lips. To his neighbour of the left, who was
Lady Bliss, he spoke _sotto voce_ of "our variegated friend," and felt
that he had disposed of him. But that "one of his wives" filled him
with a sullen despair. What were you to do with that sort of man?
Macartney saw all this and was dreadfully bored. "Damn Jimmy
Urquhart," he said to himself. "Now I shall have to work for my
living--which I hate, after dinner."

But he did it. "We'll go and talk to the Judge," he said to his
company, and led the way. Urquhart settled down to claret, and was
taciturn. He answered Linden's tentative openings in monosyllables.
But he and the Judge got on very well.

CHAPTER III

IN THE DRAWING-ROOM

After dinner, when the men came into the drawing-room, Francis Lingen
went directly to Lucy and began to talk to her. Lancelot fidgeted for
Urquhart who, however, was in easy converse with the Judge and his
host--looking at the water-colours as the talk went on, and cutting in
as a thought struck him. Lucy, seeing that all her guests were
reasonably occupied, lent herself to Lingen's murmured c