rhaps Ian will offer to take me with him. I do
hope so. But I can't ask."

As a matter of fact, poor Aline had racked her brains how to dispose of
the married Vannecks when she should be ready to take her place in
Blunderbore. As for George, she wished to keep and play with him, of
course, partly for her own amusement, partly for the moral effect upon
Somerled; but she didn't want to offend his brother and sister-in-law.
Still, they had to be got rid of eventually, as Blunderbore, with all
the faults of Noah's ark, has not the ark's accommodation for man and
beast. It was a happy thought to angle for an invitation, through Mrs.
Bal, for a few days at the Round House, as Maud Vanneck particularly
desired to see "Scottish life in a private family"; and it didn't occur
to her that a shooting-lodge hired by an American millionaire would not
be the ideal way of accomplishing her object.

Mrs. Bal was not out of her room when we were ready to start, at eleven,
so I did not see her again; but the plainest, oldest, and carrotiest of
the three red-headed maids primly accompanied Barrie to the hotel door
with hand-luggage. By this time Blunderbore was puffing heavily in
feigned eagerness to be off, and Salomon, its owner and chauffeur,
shabby and sulky as usual, was giving the car a few last oily caresses
which should have been bestowed long ago in the privacy of the garage.
Have I forgotten to mention in these rambling notes that Somerled's
Vedder regards our Salomon with a silent yet plainly visible contempt,
akin to nausea? Whenever they happen to be thrown together for a few
minutes I see the smart-liveried Vedder criticizing with his mysterious
eyes the mean features of the weedy Salomon; his weak face with the
curious, splay mouth that falls far apart in speaking, almost as if the
jaw were broken; his old cloth cap, and his thin, short figure loosely
wrapped in a long, linen dust coat. Neither Aline nor I have had the
courage to remonstrate with Salomon on his get up, but when Vedder
regards him I burn with the desire to discharge the creature and his
car, despite our contract for a month.

Barrie and I being on the spot, we could have got off, if the
Vannecks--invariably late--had not been missing. In desperation I dashed
into the hotel to look for them, and returned to find Somerled deep in
conversation with Barrie, who was in the car. I had left her standing in
the hotel doorway, with Mrs. Bal's maid: so Somerled in so