ervously, limping towards the door (he was rather lame).
"Yes? Please come in. Can I be any good--"

"Wicked boy!" exclaimed the young lady, advancing a gloved finger into
the room. "Wicked, wicked boy!"

He clasped his head with his hands.

"Agnes! Oh how perfectly awful!"

"Wicked, intolerable boy!" She turned on the electric light. The
philosophers were revealed with unpleasing suddenness. "My goodness,
a tea-party! Oh really, Rickie, you are too bad! I say again: wicked,
abominable, intolerable boy! I'll have you horsewhipped. If you
please"--she turned to the symposium, which had now risen to its feet
"If you please, he asks me and my brother for the week-end. We
accept. At the station, no Rickie. We drive to where his old lodgings
were--Trumpery Road or some such name--and he's left them. I'm furious,
and before I can stop my brother, he's paid off the cab and there we are
stranded. I've walked--walked for miles. Pray can you tell me what is to
be done with Rickie?"

"He must indeed be horsewhipped," said Tilliard pleasantly. Then he made
a bolt for the door.

"Tilliard--do stop--let me introduce Miss Pembroke--don't all go!" For
his friends were flying from his visitor like mists before the sun.
"Oh, Agnes, I am so sorry; I've nothing to say. I simply forgot you were
coming, and everything about you."

"Thank you, thank you! And how soon will you remember to ask where
Herbert is?"

"Where is he, then?"

"I shall not tell you."

"But didn't he walk with you?"

"I shall not tell, Rickie. It's part of your punishment. You are not
really sorry yet. I shall punish you again later."

She was quite right. Rickie was not as much upset as he ought to have
been. He was sorry that he had forgotten, and that he had caused his
visitors inconvenience. But he did not feel profoundly degraded, as a
young man should who has acted discourteously to a young lady. Had he
acted discourteously to his bedmaker or his gyp, he would have minded
just as much, which was not polite of him.

"First, I'll go and get food. Do sit down and rest. Oh, let me
introduce--"

Ansell was now the sole remnant of the discussion party. He still stood
on the hearthrug with a burnt match in his hand. Miss Pembroke's arrival
had never disturbed him.

"Let me introduce Mr. Ansell--Miss Pembroke."

There came an awful moment--a moment when he almost regretted that
he had a clever friend. Ansell remained absolutely motionless, moving
nei