nd there, if only to see
Wiggy Devar's crestfallen face on learning that she had entertained a
viscount unawares.

But the violins were singing the Valse Bleu, and Cynthia was upstairs,
longing for an excuse to venture forth into the night, and three
people, at least, in the crowded lounge were thinking of anything but
the amazing oddity that had puzzled Ducrot, who did not con his Burke.

Medenham, of course, realized that he had been vouchsafed another
narrow escape. What the morrow might bring forth he neither knew nor
cared. The one disconcerting fact that already shaped itself in the
mists of the coming day was Simmonds tearing breathlessly along the
Bath Road during the all too brief hours between morn and evening.

It is not to be wondered at if he read Cynthia's thoughts. There is a
language without code or symbol known to all young men and maidens--a
language that pierces stout walls and leaps wide valleys--and that
unlettered tongue whispered the hope that the girl might saunter
towards the pier. He turned forthwith into the public gardens, and
quickened his pace. Arrived at the pier, he glanced up at the hotel.
Of girls there were many on cliff and roadway, girls summer-like in
attire, girls slender of waist and airy of tread, but no Cynthia. He
went on the pier, and met more than one pair of bright eyes, but not
Cynthia's.

Then he made off in a fume to Dale's lodging, secured a linen
dust-coat which the man happened to have with him, returned to the
hotel, and hurried unseen to his room, an easy matter in the Royal
Bath, where many staircases twine deviously to the upper floors, and
brilliantly decorated walls dazzle the stranger.

He counted on the exigencies of Lady Porthcawl's toilette stopping a
too early appearance in the morning, and he was right.

At ten o'clock, when Cynthia and Mrs. Devar came out, the men lounging
near the porch were too interested in the girl and the car to bestow a
glance on the chauffeur. Ducrot was there, bland and massive in a golf
suit. He pestered Cynthia with inquiries as to the exact dates when
her father would be in London, and Medenham did not hesitate to cut
short the banker's awkward gallantries by throwing the Mercury into
her stride with a whirl.

"By Jove, Ducrot," said someone, "your pretty friend's car jumped off
like a gee-gee under the starting gate."

"If that chauffeur of hers was mine, I'd boot him," was the wrathful
reply.

"Why? What's he done?