x made his adieux, as only such a Frenchman can make them,
saying exactly the right thing to each, in exactly the right manner.

When he was gone, Barres took Thessalie's hands and pressed them:

"Pretty merle-blanc, your little friend Dulcie is already asleep. Tell
us to-morrow how you convinced him that you are what you are--the
dearest, sweetest girl in the world!"

She laughed demurely, then glanced apprehensively, sideways, at
Westmore.

And the mute but infuriated expression on that young man's countenance
seemed to cause her the loss of all self-possession, for she cast one
more look at him and fled with a hasty "good-night!"

XXII

FORELAND FARMS

Toward three o'clock on the following afternoon the sun opened up like
a searchlight through the veil of rain, dissolving it to a golden haze
which gradually grew thinner and thinner, revealing glimpses of
rolling country against a horizon of low mountains.

About the same time the covered station wagon turned in between the
white gates of Foreland Farms, proceeded at a smart trot up the drive,
and stopped under a dripping porte-cochere, where a smiling servant
stood waiting to lift out the luggage.

A trim looking man of forty odd, in soft shirt and fawn coloured
knickers, and wearing a monocle in his right eye and a flower in his
buttonhole, came out on the porch as Barres and his guests descended.

"Well, Garry," he said, "I'm glad you're home at last! But you're
rather late for the fishing." And to Westmore:

"How are you, Jim? Jolly to have you back! But I regret to inform you
that the fishing is very poor just now."

His son, who stood an inch or two taller than his debonaire parent,
passed one arm around his shoulders and patted them affectionately
while the easy presentations were concluded.

At the same moment two women, beautifully mounted and very wet,
galloped up to the porch and welcomed Garry's guests from their
saddles in the pleasant, informal, incurious manner characteristic of
Foreland Farm folk--a manner which seemed too amiably certain of
itself to feel responsibility for anybody or anything else.

Easy, unconcerned, slender and clean-built women these--Mrs. Reginald
Barres, Garry's mother, and her daughter, Lee. And in their smart,
rain-wet riding clothes they might easily have been sisters, with a
few years' difference between them, so agreeably had Time behaved
toward Mrs. Barres, so closely her fair-haired, fair-skinned