e!" shouted back Sir Beverley, shaking the door
with fierce impatience. "Damn it, let me in! I'll force the door if
you don't."

"No, don't, sir; don't! I'm coming!"

There came the sound of a splashing leap, and bare feet raced across the
bathroom floor. The door was wrenched from Sir Beverley's grasp, and
flung open. Piers, quite naked, stood back and bowed him in with
elaborate ceremony.

Sir Beverley entered and glared at him.

Piers shut the door and took a flying jump back into the bath. The room
was dense with steam.

"You don't mind if I go on with my wash, do you?" he said. "I shall be
late for dinner if I don't."

"What in thunder do you want to boil yourself like this for?" demanded
Sir Beverley.

Piers, seated with his hands clasped round his knees, looked up with the
smile of an infant. "It suits my constitution, sir," he said. "I freeze
myself in the morning and boil myself at night--always. By that means I
am rendered impervious to all atmospheric changes of temperature."

"You're a fool, Piers," said Sir Beverley.

Piers laughed, a gay, indifferent laugh. "That all?" he said lightly.

"No, it isn't all." Sir Beverley's voice had a curious forced ring,
almost as if he were stern in spite of himself. "I came to ask--and I
mean to know--" He broke off. "What the devil have you done to your
shoulders?"

Piers' hands unlocked as if at the touch of a spring. He slipped down
backwards into the bath and lay with the water lapping round his black
head. His eyes, black also, and very straight and resolute, looked up at
Sir Beverley.

"Look here, sir; if there's anything you want to know I'll tell you after
dinner. I thought--possibly--you'd come to shake hands, or I shouldn't
have been in such a hurry to let you in. As it is,--"

"Confound you, Piers!" broke in Sir Beverley. "Don't preach to me! Sit up
again! Do you hear? Sit up, and let me look at you!"

But Piers made no movement to comply. "No, sir; thanks all the same. I
don't want to be looked at. Do you mind going now? I'm going to splash."

His tone was deliberately jaunty, but it held undoubted determination.
He kept his eyes unswervingly on his grandfather's face.

Sir Beverley stood his ground, however, his black brows fiercely drawn.
"Get up, Piers!" he ordered, his tone no longer blustering, but curtly
peremptory. "Get up, do you hear?" he added with a gleam of humour. "You
may as well give in at once, you young mule. You'll have to