ed it. She recalled Endymion's prophecy that
these entertainments would throw the domestic mechanism--always more
delicately poised on Sundays than on weekdays--completely oft its
pivot. She had pledged herself to prevent this, and had made a private
appeal to the maidservants with whose Sunday-out they interfered. They
had responded loyally.

Still, this was the first experiment; she would go down to the hall
again and make sure that the couches were in position, the cushions
shaken up, the pot-plants placed around the fountain so accurately that
Endymion's nice eye for small comforts could detect no excuse for
saying, "I told you so."

As she passed along the gallery her eyes sought the pillar beside which
M. Raoul had stood during the lecture. By the foot of it a book lay
face downwards--a book cheaply bound between boards of mottled paper.
She picked it up and read the title; it was a volume of Rousseau's
Confessions--a book of which she remembered to have heard. On the
flyleaf was written the owner's name in full--"Charles Marie Fabien
de Raoul."

Dorothea hurried downstairs with it and past the servants tidying the
hall.

She looked to find M. Raoul still buttonholed and held captive by
Narcissus at the eastern angle of the house. But before she reached the
front door she happened--though perhaps it was not quite accidental--
to throw a glance through the window by which he had stood and talked
with her, and saw him striding away down the avenue in the dusk.

She returned to her room and summoned Polly.

"You know M. Raoul? He has left, forgetting this book, which belongs to
him. Run down to the small gate, that's a good girl--you will overtake
him easily, since he is walking round by the avenue--and return it,
with my compliments."

Polly picked up her skirts and ran. A narrow path slanted down across
the slope of the park to the nurseries--a sheltered corner in which
the Bayfield gardener grew his more delicate evergreens--and here a
small wicket-gate opened on the high road.

The gate stood many feet above the road, which descended the hill
between steep hedges. She heard M. Raoul's footstep as she reached it,
and, peering over, saw him before he caught sight of her; indeed, he
had almost passed with-out when she hailed him.

"Holloa!" He swung almost rightabout and smiled up pleasantly. "Is it
highway robbery? If so, I surrender."

Polly laughed, showing a fine set of teeth.

"I'm 'most out of b