amazement which gave
me a wicked pleasure, and it was some minutes before I had the chance
to introduce him.

Mr. Cooke's idea of an introduction, however, was no mere word-formula:
it was fraught with a deeper and a bibulous meaning. He presented the
Celebrity to his wife, and then invited both of us to go inside with him
by one of those neat and cordial paraphrases in which he was skilled.
I preferred to remain with Mrs. Cooke, and it was with a gleam of hope
at a possible deliverance from my late persecution that I watched the two
disappear together through the hall and into the smoking-room.

"How do you like Mohair?" I asked Mrs. Cooke.

"Do you mean the house or the park?" she laughed; and then, seeing my
embarrassment, she went on: "Oh, the house is just like everything else
Fenelon meddles with. Outside it's a mixture of all the styles, and
inside a hash of all the nationalities from Siamese to Spanish. Fenelon
hangs the Oriental tinsels he has collected on pieces of black baronial
oak, and the coat-of-arms he had designed by our Philadelphia jewellers
is stamped on the dining-room chairs, and even worked into the fire
screens."

There was nothing paltry in her criticism of her husband, nothing she
would not have said to his face. She was a woman who made you feel this,
for sincerity was written all over her. I could not help wondering why
she gave Mr. Cooke line in the matter of household decoration, unless
it was that he considered Mohair his own, private hobby, and that she
humored him. Mrs. Cooke was not without tact, and I have no doubt she
perceived my reluctance to talk about her husband and respected it.

"We drove down to bring you back to luncheon," she said.

I thanked her and accepted. She was curious to hear about Asquith and
its people, and I told her all I knew.

"I should like to meet some of them," she explained, "for we intend
having a cotillon at Mohair,--a kind of house-warming, you know. A party
of Mr. Cooke's friends is coming out for it in his car, and he thought
something of inviting the people of Asquith up for a dance."

I had my doubts concerning the wisdom of an entertainment, the success
of which depended on the fusion of a party of Mr. Cooke's friends and
a company from Asquith. But I held my peace. She shot a question at me
suddenly:

"Who is this Mr. Allen?"

"He registers from Boston, and only came a fortnight ago," I replied
vaguely.

"He doesn't look quite right;