will turn a cold shoulder upon us, as the autumn
comes to spoil its disposition, and we were saying only this morning
that it would be fine to make a rush to the Riviera, for a wind up to
our trip."

"You see, Molly had a letter----" Jack had begun to speak with an
absent-minded air, but suddenly recovered himself. "We don't care to
get back to England till November," he hastily went on. "I want Molly
to have some hunting and a jolly round of country houses just to see
what we can do to make an English winter tolerable. We've got four or
five ripping invitations, and in January Mistress Molly herself will
have to play hostess to a big house party, at Brighthelmston Park,
which the mater and governor have lent us till next season."

If he had wanted to take my mind off an inadvertence, he could
scarcely have manoeuvred better, but why the inadvertence (if it had
been one) could concern me, it was difficult to imagine.

There was a friendly dispute as to whether Molly and jack should see
me off, or whether I should wish them good-bye before starting on my
journey; but in the end it was settled that I should be the one to
leave first. Perhaps they believed that, if left to myself, I should
never start at all; perhaps they wished to add photographs of the
mule-party to their Kodak collection, already large; or perhaps they
thought only how to make the parting pleasantest for me, since I had
no one, and they had each other.

[Illustration: "THERE WAS A PANG WHEN I TURNED MY BACK".]

In any case, at ten o'clock all that was left of my store was placed
upon the back of Finois, who had the air of ignoring its existence,
and mine as well. Had he been a horse, he would at least have deigned
to exchange glances with me, friendly or otherwise; but being what he
was, he looked everywhere except at me, as if he had been some haughty
aristocrat conscientiously snubbing an offensive upstart. Joseph
appeared to be the one human being of more importance for Finois than
the moving bough of an inedible tree, bush, or shrub, and even Molly
could win him to no change of facial expression, though he ate her
offered sugar.

There was a pang when I turned my back irrevocably upon my friends,
having waved my hand or my panama so often that to do so again would
he ridiculous. We were off, Joseph, Finois, and I; there was no
getting round it; and as we ambled away along the hot white road, we
seemed but small things in the scheme of a busy