ld woman's whims."

"I thoroughly understand Miss Dymmock, and I have the most profound
regard for her," responded Nugent cordially. "There is never likely to
be any serious matter at issue between us, but if there were I should
be very sorry to have to cross swords with her."

Yet his thin lips curled in a dreamy smile as he was whirled away in the
serviceable little Darracq which had been presented to him by a titled
idiot in gratitude for an introduction that had eventually ruined him.

"I hardly think that Miss Sarah Dymmock, useful as she has proved this
morning, will loom on the horizon of present interests," he murmured
softly to himself when he had directed his chauffeur to drive him home.

During the six minutes which it took to cover the distance from the
Manor House into the town Nugent closed his eyes and leaned back,
indifferent to the autumn glories of the fair Devon landscape. The
fern-girt lanes, with occasional peeps of the blue sea and the red point
at the mouth of the river, the golden harvest-fields, the lush orchards
with their drooping loads of cider apples, the old cob-built
farmsteads--all these flashed past him unheeded as he sat with folded
arms wrapped in deepest reverie.

But when the car took the steep dip at the eastern end of the parade,
and the road, first on one side only and then on both, became flanked
with houses, he braced himself for social amenities. People were about
in plenty, mostly known to him, and many of them eager for recognition
by the cool-looking gentleman in the car who had the reputation of being
a personage in London society. Nearly all the ladies of Ottermouth, at
any rate, were proud of their Travers Nugent, and rejoiced greatly that
for a month or two in the year he deigned to sojourn in their midst. And
the dowdier the ladies and the less he had to do with them the prouder
were they.

But the dowdy ladies at Ottermouth were an insignificant minority.
Certainly not to be classed in that category was the winsome maiden,
dressed in immaculate white flannel and carrying a tennis racquet, to
whom Nugent raised his soft grey hat as the car struck into the main
street. A vision of dainty, if very youthful, loveliness, Enid Mallory
was smart from the crown of her well-poised little head to the soles of
her natty shoes. She returned Nugent's bow with a trace of brusqueness,
and immediately turned and made a grimace at the clean-shaven young
fellow who was with her. N