They had been
talking about the long distances that separated most of the mansions in
the county.

"Isn't it ridiculous, Mr. Carrington," said she, "we haven't got a car!"

"Absurd," agreed Mr. Carrington, helping himself to cake.

"Do you know, this brother of mine here has actually come into a
fortune, and yet he won't buy me even one little motor car!"

Ned frowned and muttered something that might have checked their
visitor's reply, had he noticed the laird's displeasure, but for the
moment he seemed to have become very unobserving.

"Come into a fortune?" said he. "What a bit of luck! How much--a
million--two million?"

"Oh, not as much as that, worse luck! But quite enough to buy at least
three decent cars if he was half a sportsman! And he won't get one!"

Mr. Carrington was now trying to balance his cake in his saucer and was
evidently too absorbed in his efforts to notice his host's waxing
displeasure.

"In my experience," said he, "you can't get a decent car much under four
hundred."

"Well," said she, "that's just the figure it would bring it to."

"Lilian!" muttered her brother wrathfully.

But at that moment Mr. Carrington coughed, evidently over a cake crumb,
and failed to hear the expostulation.

"But perhaps he is going to buy you something even handsomer instead,"
he suggested.

"Is he!" she scoffed, with a defiant eye on her brother. "I believe he's
going to blue it in something too scandalous to talk about in mixed
society! Anyhow it's something too mysterious to tell me!"

By this time Ned's face was a thundercloud in which lightning was
clearly imminent, but Mr. Carrington now recovered his wonted tact as
suddenly as he had lost it.

"That reminds me of a very curious story I heard at my club the other
day," he began, and in a few minutes the conversation was far away from
Miss Cromarty's grievances. And then, having finished his cup of tea, he
looked at his watch with an exclamation and protested that he must
depart on the instant.

As he lay back in his car he murmured with a satisfied smile:

"That's settled anyhow!"

And then for the whole drive home he fell very thoughtful indeed. Only
one incident aroused him, and that but for a moment. It was quite dark
by this time, and somewhere between the Keldale House lodge and the
town, the lamps of the car swept for an instant over a girl riding a
bicycle in the opposite direction. Carrington looked round quickly and
saw that s