he head
confirmed the threat.

"Yes, yes, this very afternoon! The sooner the better!"

He swung about and stepped across the terrace to a French window that
stood open to the air and sunshine. It was the window of the morning
room, where he usually took his luncheon, and he passed in briskly,
meaning to ring the bell and give orders to have the meal served at
once. But, as he stepped across the low sill somebody rose in the
room's cool shadow and confronted him, and he fell back catching at the
jamb for support and staring.

It was the stranger herself: the woman for whom they had all been
vainly searching!

"Good morning!" said Vashti, with a self-possessed little bow. "Oh, but
I fear I have startled you?"

"Ah--er--" the Lord Proprietor pulled himself together with an
effort--"Well, to tell the truth? you did take me by surprise; the more
so that----"

"It was dreadfully uncivil of me--not to say impudent--to walk in here
unannounced. But the fact is I could find no door along the terrace;
nothing but windows. Forgive me."

"Certainly, madam, certainly.... The front door is, so to speak, at the
rear of the building.... But I was going to say that you took me the
more by surprise because, as a matter of fact, I had just given up
hunting for you."

Vashti laughed. She looked adorably cool and provoking; and still, as
he stared at her, the Lord Proprietor wondered more and more whence in
the world she came. He knew little of female beauty (the late Lady
Hutchins had been plain-featured) and less of clothes; but three or
four times in his life, at public functions, he had mixed with the
great ones of the land, and here patently was one of them. Her speech,
dress, bearing, all proclaimed it; her easy self-possession, too, and
air of authority. Out of what Olympus had she descended upon these
remote Atlantic isles?

"I saw that you had company," she answered, "and I ran away. To tell
you the truth I was a little afraid of them--that is to say, of some of
them. But what was Archelaus doing here?"

The Lord Proprietor frowned.

"Did he come to apologise? Oh, but that is just one of the reasons that
brought me here! You must not be angry with Archelaus; no, really, it
was not his fault, at all, but mine."

"I think, ma'am," said the Lord Proprietor, "we are talking at
cross-purposes."

"No, no, we are not," she corrected him briskly with a little laugh.
"We are talking about that unhappy scarecrow." She pau