his feet under the table. 'No, my dear,'
he said. 'I forgot all about it; and now I don't see that we shall
have room.'

'Oh yes,' replied Clarice quickly. 'He might have Mr. Drake's room during
that fortnight. I think we ought to ask him. We always have, and it will
look rather strange if we leave him out this summer. I will get aunt to
write after breakfast.'

Mr. Le Mesurier glanced at Mrs. Willoughby, but made no active
resistance, and Clarice took care that the letter was despatched by that
day's post. On the next day she organised a picnic in Little Sark, and
returned to the Seigneurie at an hour which gave her sufficient time to
dress for dinner, but no margin for welcoming visitors. In consequence
she only saw Drake at the dinner-table. She saw little of him afterwards,
for Mr. Le Mesurier pounced upon him after dinner. 'I want to introduce
you to Burl,' he said. 'He's Parliamentary agent for the Northern
Counties. There's a constituency in Yorkshire where my brother lives, and
I rather think Burl wants a candidate.'

Drake was presented to a gentleman six feet three in his socks,
deep-chested, broad-shouldered, with a square rugged face on the slant
from the forehead to the chin. Mrs. Willoughby said he looked like a
pirate, and rumour made of her simile a fact. It was known that, late one
night in the smoking-room of the Seigneurie, he had owned to
silver-running on the coast of Mexico. Mr. Burl and Drake passed most of
that evening smoking together in the garden. Similarly on the next day
Clarice avoided a private interview with Drake. On the other hand,
however, he made no visible effort to secure one. Mrs. Willoughby
wondered at his reticence, and did more than wonder. She had by this time
espoused his cause, and knowing no half-measures in her enthusiasms, saw
his chances slipping from him, with considerable irritation. She was
consequently provoked to hint her advice to him on the evening before he
was to leave.

Drake shook his head and replied frankly: 'One can be too previous. I
made that mistake once before, and I don't mean to repeat it.'

He remained silent for a moment or two, and added: 'I think I'll tell you
about it, Mrs. Willoughby. You have guessed some part of the story, and
you are Clarice's friend, and mine too, I believe.'

With an impulsiveness rare in him, which however served to rivet him yet
more firmly in Mrs. Willoughby's esteem, he confided to her the history
of his proposal