I didn't have quite enough already to try me, Jenkins at
the last moment chucked the crimson scarf altogether, and slipped
through my collar a Persian bat! By Jove, I was so dashed annoyed, I
took it from him to tie myself.

"Off and on with the old love!" It kept whispering itself in my ear till
I hardly knew what I was doing. _Could_ it be that she would--but, oh,
dash it, _no_! I knew she wouldn't! And yet another chap might come
along and she might find she would rather be engaged to _him_! Oh, but I
was sure _she_ was not so variable as that. Still a vague fear kept
recurring; a miserable, tiny, pricking doubt--the crumpled
what's-its-name in the bed of down, you know--that sort of thing!

What the deuce was the best thing to do?

"Pardon, sir," came in Jenkins' voice, and in the glass I saw his head
piking anxiously over my shoulder; "but _I_ think with them changeable
kind, the best thing to try for is a sudden, firm knot!"

"Eh?" I said, staring. And then I whirled upon him, seizing both his
hands.

"By Jove, Jenkins!" I exclaimed admiringly. "What a perfectly
out-and-out corking idea--a regular ripper, you know! How devilish
clever of you, dash it!"

"Certainly, sir!" Jenkins batted a little--always does when I notice
these little things--so modest, don't you know.

But I had the idea now, and I gripped it tight along with my monocle,
as, ten minutes later, I sauntered down the stairs.

I would speak to her father at once!

CHAPTER XXIV

I SPEAK TO HER FATHER

"So glad to see you here, my boy," the judge was saying. And his little
round face beamed at me across the library table. I had encountered him
in the hall just as I had descended to rejoin the girls in the
living-room. Forthwith, he elbowed me into the library.

"Know from Jack how glad you always are to escape girls," he remarked
cheerily as he produced cigars. "Don't blame you at all--in fact, do you
know it refreshes me to find--"

Don't know what dashed thing it refreshed him to find, for I never
caught it. For just then through the doorway there floated, from across
the hall, a bar of music--the laugh of the dearest girl in the world!

I strained for another bar.

"Hah!" ejaculated the judge, pausing with questioning uplift of cigar.
"The silly cackle of those girls--it disturbs you. Yes, it does--I can
see it--you _look_ disturbed." And, dash it, he insisted upon closing
the door. "You mustn't let _them_ bother you while