e not in the seventeenth century."

Then Tommy flushed.

"I did not intend to do it. I could not help it. She was so--so nice
about everything. That girl is an angel. I told her so."

"Very right and proper spirit to approach her in," answered the old
woman, watching him keenly. "Was she angel enough to say she would marry
you?"

Tommy, for some occult reason, had the courage to stare back into his
grandmother's eyes, quite as if he were a man, and not a hobbledehoy,
expecting to be bullied.

"She does not want me," he answered. "And I knew she wouldn't. Why
should she? I did what you ordered me to do, and she answered me as I
knew she would. She might have snubbed me, but she has such a way with
her--such a way of saying things and understanding, that--that--well, I
found myself on one knee, kissing her hand--as if I was being presented
at court."

Old Lady Alanby looked out on the passing landscape.

"Well, you did your best," she summed the matter up at last, "if you
went down on your knees involuntarily. If you had done it on purpose, it
would have been unpardonable."

CHAPTER XXXIV

RED GODWYN

Stornham Court had taken its proper position in the county as a place
which was equal to social exchange in the matter of entertainment. Sir
Nigel and Lady Anstruthers had given a garden party, according to the
decrees of the law obtaining in country neighbourhoods. The curiosity
to behold Miss Vanderpoel, and the change which had been worked in the
well-known desolation and disrepair, precluded the possibility of the
refusal of any invitations sent, the recipient being in his or her
right mind, and sound in wind and limb. That astonishing things had been
accomplished, and that the party was a successful affair, could not but
be accepted as truths. Garden parties had been heard of, were a trifle
repetitional, and even dull, but at this one there was real music and
real dancing, and clever entertainments were given at intervals in a
green-embowered little theatre, erected for the occasion. These were
agreeable additions to mere food and conversation, which were capable of
palling.

To the garden party the Anstruthers did not confine themselves.
There were dinner parties at Stornham, and they also were successful
functions. The guests were of those who make for the success of such
entertainments.

"I called upon Mount Dunstan this afternoon," Sir Nigel said one
evening, before the first of these dinners. "