f Tallyn, she remembered that she had promised to go back after dinner
and read to Oliver. Her nature rebelled in a moral and physical nausea,
and it was all she could do to meet Lady Lucy at their solitary dinner
with her usual good temper.

CHAPTER XXII

Sir James Chide was giving tea to a couple of guests at Lytchett Manor.
It was a Saturday in late September. The beech-trees visible through the
drawing-room windows were still untouched and heavily green; but their
transformation was approaching. Soon, steeped in incredible splendors of
orange and gold, they would stand upon the leaf-strewn grass, waiting
for the night of rain or the touch of frost which should at last
disrobe them.

"If you imagine, Miss Ettie," said Sir James, severely, to a young lady
beside him, "that I place the smallest faith in any of Bobbie's remarks
or protestations--"

The girl addressed smiled into his face, undaunted. She was a small
elfish creature with a thin face, on the slenderest of necks. But in her
queer little countenance a pair of laughing eyes, out of all proportion
to the rest of her for loveliness and effect, gave her and kept her the
attention of the world. They lent distinction--fascination even--to a
character of simple virtues and girlish innocence.

Bobbie lounged behind her chair, his arms on the back of it. He took Sir
James's attack upon him with calm. "Shall I show him the letter of my
beastly chairman?" he said, in the girl's ear.

She nodded, and Bobbie drew from his breast-pocket a folded sheet of
blue paper, and pompously handed it to Sir James.

The letter was from the chairman of a leading bank in Berlin--a man well
known in European finance. It was couched in very civil terms, and
contained the offer to Mr. Robert Forbes of a post in the Lindner bank,
as an English correspondence clerk, at a salary in marks which, when
translated, meant about L140 a year.

Sir James read it, and handed it back. "Well, what's the meaning of
that?"

"I'm giving up the Foreign Office," said Bobbie, an engaging openness of
manner. "It's not a proper place for a young man. I've learned nothing
there but a game we do with Blue-Books, and things you throw at the
ceiling--where they stick--I'll tell you about it presently. Besides,
you see, I must have some money, and it don't grow in the Foreign Office
for people like me. So I went to my uncle, Lord Forestier--"

"Of course!" growled Sir James. "I thought we should