ou!"

The fourth person, slim, fair-haired, the typical army officer and
country house habitue, came over to the table, followed by the
lantern-jawed man. Lady Peggy also turned up a card.

"You and I, Gilbert," Wilhelmina remarked to the elder man. "Here's luck
to us! What on earth is that you are drinking?"

"Absinthe," he answered calmly. "I have been trying to persuade Austin
to join me, but it seems they don't drink absinthe in the Army."

"I should think not, indeed," his hostess answered. "And you my partner,
too! Put the stuff away."

Gilbert Deyes raised his glass and looked thoughtfully into its
opalescent depths.

"Ah! my dear lady," he said, "you make a great mistake when you
number absinthe amongst the ordinary intoxicating beverages. I
tell you that the man who invented it was an epicure in sensations
and--er--gastronomy. If only De Quincey had realized the possibility
of absinthe, he would have given us jewelled prose indeed."

Wilhelmina yawned.

"Bother De Quincey!" she declared. "It's your bridge I'm thinking of."

"Dear lady, you need have no anxiety," Deyes answered reassuringly. "One
does not trifle with one's livelihood. You will find me capable of the
most daring finesses, the most wonderful coups. I shall not revoke, I
shall not lead out of the wrong hand. My declarations will be touched
with genius. The rubber, in fact, is already won. Vive l'absinthe!"

"The rubber will never be begun if you go on talking nonsense much
longer," Lady Peggy declared, tapping the table impatiently. "I believe
I hear the motors outside. We shall have the whole crowd here directly."

"They won't find their way here," their hostess assured them calmly. "My
deal, I believe."

They played the hand in silence. At its conclusion, Wilhelmina leaned
back in her chair and listened.

"You were right, Peggy," she said, "they are all in the hall. I can hear
your brother's voice."

Lady Peggy nodded.

"Sounds healthy, doesn't it?"

Gilbert Deyes leaned across to the side table and helped himself to a
cigarette.

"Healthy! I call it boisterous," he declared. "Where have they all
been?"

"Motoring somewhere," Wilhelmina answered. "They none of them have any
idea how to pass the time away until the first run."

"Sport, my dear hostess," Deyes remarked, "is the one thing which makes
life in a country house almost unendurable."

Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

"That's all very well, Gilbert," she said