made for intimacy. Miss Penny and Graeme, indeed, still did
most of the actual speaking, as he remembered afterwards, but Margaret
was in no way outside their talk, and if she did not say much it is
probable that she listened and thought none the less.

The Coupee afforded Graeme another all-too-short span of delight,
while Margaret's hand throbbed in his and she entrusted herself to his
protection.

He took them home by the Windmill, and through the fields and
hedge-gaps into the grounds of the Red House, and in his heart's eye
saw Margaret standing once more in the opening of the tall hedge with
the morning glory all about her--just as he would remember her all his
life.

"Time?" demanded Miss Penny, as they passed along the verandah.

"Half-past seven."

"Then you are half an hour late for your dinner. I propose that we ask
Mrs. Carre to serve us all together to-night," said Miss Penny, "or we
may all fare the worse."

"I shall be delighted," began Graeme exuberantly, "unless--" and he
snapped a glance at Miss Brandt.

"We shall be glad if you will join us," she said quickly.

"I will be there in two minutes," he said, and sped up the Red House
stairs to make ready.

"I hope to goodness he won't," said Miss Penny, as they passed through
the hedge. "Now don't you say a word to me, Margaret Brandt. It was
you invited him"

"Oh!"

"'We shall be glad if you will join us.' If that isn't an invitation
I'd like to know what it is. And I heard you say it with my own two
ears,--moi qui vous parle, as we say here."

"You know perfectly well that I could not possibly do anything else,
Hennie. I believe you just did it on purpose. I don't know what's come
over you."

"John Graeme. I like him. And after all he'd done for us--that Coupee,
and Venus's Bath, and the Souffleur, and he like to lose his dinner
over it all! What could a kind motherly person like me do but
suggest--simply suggest, in the vaguest manner possible--"

"Yes?--" as she stopped in a challenging way.

"I merely threw out the suggestion, I say, in the vaguest possible
way, that as we were nearly dying of hunger he should allow us to ask
Mrs. Carre to let us have our dinner half an hour earlier than
usual--"

"Oh!"

"And then you struck in, in your usual lordly fashion, and begged him
to join us. And I'm bound to say he took it very well, not to say
jumped at it."

"Hennie, you're a--"

"Yes, I know. And if I live I'll be a be-a, and p