, a
great automobile swung round the corner and slackened speed. Major
Forrest leaned out and addressed him.

"Can you tell me if this is the Red Hall, my man--Mr. De la Borne's
place?" he asked.

Andrew nodded, without a glance at the veiled and shrouded women who
were leaning forward to hear his answer.

"The next avenue is the front way," he said. "Mind how you turn in--the
corner is rather sharp."

He spoke purposely in broad Norfolk, and passed on.

"What a Goliath!" Engleton remarked.

"I should like to sketch him," the Princess drawled. "His shoulders
were magnificent."

But neither of them had any idea that they had spoken with the owner of
the Red Hall.

CHAPTER IV

About half-way through dinner that night, Cecil de la Borne drew a long
sigh of relief. At last his misgivings were set at rest. His party was
going to be, was already, in fact, pronounced, a success. A glance at
his fair neighbour, however, who was lighting her third or fourth
Russian cigarette since the caviare, sent a shiver of thankfulness
through his whole being. What a sensible fellow Andrew had been to
clear out. This sort of thing would not have appealed to him at all.

"My dear Cecil," the Princess declared, "I call this perfectly
delightful. Jeanne and I have wanted so much to see you in your own
home. Jeanne, isn't this nicer, ever so much nicer, than anything you
had imagined?"

Jeanne, who was sitting opposite, lifted her remarkable eyes and
glanced around with interest.

"Yes," she admitted, "I think that it is! But then, any place that
looks in the least like a home is a delightful change after all that
rushing about in London."

"I agree with you entirely," Major Forrest declared. "If our friend has
disappointed us at all, it is in the absence of that primitiveness
which he led us to expect. One perceives that one is drinking Veuve
Clicquot of a vintage year, and one suspects the nationality of our
host's cook."

"You can have all the primitivism you want if you look out of the
windows," Cecil remarked drily. "You will see nothing but a line of
stunted trees, and behind, miles of marshes and the greyest sea which
ever played upon the land. Listen! You don't hear a sound like that in
the cities."

Even as he spoke they heard the dull roar of the north wind booming
across the wild empty places which lay between the Red Hall and the
sea. A storm of raindrops was flung against the window. The Princess
shive