es' guests fell to the
lure of Flamby's ever increasing charms.

Flamby, who now was wise with a wisdom possessed by few women, and who
could confound a gallant with the wit of Propertius, or damn his eyes
like any trooper, amused herself with the overdressed youth, and ate
many expensive chocolates. Mistaking the situation, and used to the
complaisance of the French peasant, M. le Petit-Maitre presented himself
at Dovelands Cottage and made certain overtures of a financial nature to
Mrs. Duveen. Between his imperfect English, his delicate mode of
expressing the indelicate, and his great charm, poor Mrs. Duveen found
confusion, brewed tea and reported the conversation to her husband.

Michael Duveen grew black with wrath, and, taking up a heavy dish from
the table, he hurled it at the poor, foolish woman. As he did so the
door opened and Flamby came in. The dish, crashing against the edge of
the door, was shattered and a fragment struck Flamby's bare arm,
inflicting a deep wound.

Like a cloak discarded, Duveen's wrath fell from him at sight of the
blood on that soft round arm. He was a man suddenly sick with remorse;
and, to the last, the faint scar which the wound left was as a crucifix
before which he abased himself. He did not even thrash the Frenchman,
but was content with sending to that astonished gallant an
acknowledgment of his offer couched in such pure and scathing French
prose that it stung more surely than any lash.

Duveen's was a strange nature, and to Flamby, as her powers of
observation grew keener, he presented a study at once fascinating and
mournful. He had deeper scholarship than many a man who holds a
university chair; he knew the classics as lesser men know their party
politics; and the woodlands, fields and brooks, with their countless
inhabitants, held no mysteries for him. Yet he was content to be as
Flamby had always known him--a manual labourer. The larder of Dovelands
Cottage was well stocked, winter and summer alike, and Mrs. Duveen, who
accepted what the gods offered unquestioningly, never troubled to
inquire how folks so poor as they could procure game and fish at all
proper seasons. Fawkes could have enlightened her; but there was no man
in Lower Charleswood, or for that matter in the county, of a hardihood
to cross Michael Duveen. Furthermore, Sir Jacques, who was a Justice of
the Peace, would hear no ill of him. Finally, one bitter winter's
morning in the first year of the war, Fla