knowledge of geography. The
supper was the summit of Denry's triumph. The best people spoke to him
without being introduced. And lovely creatures mysteriously and
intoxicatingly discovered that programmes which had been crammed two
hours before were not, after all, quite full.

"Do tell us what the Countess was laughing at?" This question was shot
at him at least thirty times. He always said he would not tell. And one
girl who had danced with Mr Stanway, who had danced with the Countess,
said that Mr Stanway had said that the Countess would not tell either.
Proof, here, that he was being extensively talked about!

Towards the end of the festivity the rumour floated abroad that the
Countess had lost her fan. The rumour reached Denry, who maintained a
culpable silence. But when all was over, and the Countess was departing,
he rushed down after her, and, in a dramatic fashion which demonstrated
his genius for the effective, he caught her exactly as she was getting
into her carriage.

"I've just picked it up," he said, pushing through the crowd of
worshippers.

"On! thank you so much!" she said. And the Earl also thanked Denry. And
then the Countess, leaning from the carriage, said, with archness in her
efficient smile: "You do pick things up easily, don't you?"

And both Demo and the Countess laughed without restraint, and the
pillars of Bursley society were mystified.

Denry winked at Jock as the horses pawed away. And Jock winked back.

The envied of all, Denry walked home, thinking violently. At a stroke he
had become possessed of more than he could earn from Duncalf in a month.
The faces of the Countess, of Ruth Earp, and of the timid Nellie mingled
in exquisite hallucinations before his tired eyes. He was inexpressibly
happy. Trouble, however, awaited him.

CHAPTER II

THE WIDOW HULLINS'S HOUSE

I

The simple fact that he first, of all the citizens of Bursley, had asked
a countess for a dance (and not been refused) made a new man of Denry
Machin. He was not only regarded by the whole town as a fellow wonderful
and dazzling, but he so regarded himself. He could not get over it. He
had always been cheerful, even to optimism. He was now in a permanent
state of calm, assured jollity. He would get up in the morning with song
and dance. Bursley and the general world were no longer Bursley and the
general world; they had been mysteriously transformed into an oyster;
and Denry felt strangely that the oyste