he cavalry-man slinking hurriedly
round two bushes and then, having run like a stag across the open, going
to ground in some dense undergrowth on the opposite side. And Vane, to
his everlasting credit be it said, did not even smile. . . .

After a while the flood more or less spent itself, and Vane seized the
occasion of a pause for breath to ask after old John.

"I see you've got a new lodge-keeper, Sir John. Robert tells me that the
old man who was here under Lord Forres is in the village."

"Yes. Had to get rid of him. Too slow. I like efficiency, my boy,
efficiency. . . . That's my motto." Sir John complacently performed
three steps of his celebrated strut. "Did you know the Hearl?" Though
fairly sound on the matter, in moments of excitement he was apt to
counterbalance his wife with the elusive letter. . . .

Vane replied that he did--fairly well.

"A charming man, sir . . . typical of all that is best in our old English
nobility. I am proud, sir, to have had such a predecessor. I number the
Hearl, sir, among my most intimate friends. . . ."

Vane, who remembered the graphic description given him by Blervie--the
Earl's eldest son--at lunch one day, concerning the transaction at the
time of the sale, preserved a discreet silence.

"A horrible-looking little man, old bean," that worthy had remarked.
"Quite round, and bounces in his chair. The governor saw him once, and
had to leave the room. 'I can't stand it,' he said to me outside, 'the
dam fellow keeps hopping up and down, and calling me His Grace. He's
either unwell, or his trousers are coming off.'" Lord Blervie had helped
himself to some more whisky and sighed. "I've had an awful time," he
continued after a while. "The governor sat in one room, and Patterdale
bounced in the other, and old Podmore ran backwards and forwards between,
with papers and things. And if we hadn't kept the little blighter back
by force he was going to make a speech to the old man when it was all
fixed up. . . ."

At last Sir John left Vane to himself, and with a sigh of relief he sank
into the chair so recently vacated by the cavalryman. In his hand he
held a couple of magazines, but, almost unheeded, they slipped out of his
fingers on to the grass. He felt supremely and blissfully lazy. The
soft thud of tennis balls, and the players' voices calling the score,
came faintly through the still air, and Vane half closed his eyes. Then
a sudden rustle of a skirt