.

"He doesn't look quite right; as though he had been set down on the
wrong planet, you know," said Mrs. Cooke, her finger on her temple.
"What is he like?"

"Well," I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration,
"he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having
one."

"So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?"

I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.

"No, I do not," said I.

"I thought not," she said, laughing. It must have been my expression
which prompted her next remark.

"I was not making fun of you," she said, more soberly; "I do not like
Mr. Allen any better than you do, and I have only seen him once."

"But I have not said I did not like him," I objected.

"Of course not," said Mrs. Cooke, quizzically.

At that moment, to my relief, I discerned the Celebrity and Mr. Cooke in
the hallway.

"Here they come, now," she went on. "I do wish Fenelon would keep
his hands off the people he meets. I can feel he is going to make an
intimate of that man. Mark my words, Mr. Crocker."

I not only marked them, I prayed for their fulfilment.

There was that in Mr. Cooke which, for want of a better name, I will
call instinct. As he came down the steps, his arm linked in that of
the Celebrity, his attitude towards his wife was both apologetic and
defiant. He had at once the air of a child caught with a forbidden
toy, and that of a stripling of twenty-one who flaunts a cigar in his
father's face.

"Maria," he said, "Mr. Allen has consented to come back with us for
lunch."

We drove back to Mohair, Mr. Cooke and the Celebrity on the box, Mrs.
Cooke and I behind. Except to visit the boathouses I had not been to
Mohair since the day of its completion, and now the full beauty of the
approach struck me for the first time. We swung by the lodge, the keeper
holding open the iron gate as we passed, and into the wide driveway,
hewn, as it were, out of the virgin forest. The sandy soil had been
strengthened by a deep road-bed of clay imported from the interior,
which was spread in turn with a fine gravel, which crunched under the
heavy wheels. From the lodge to the house, a full mile, branches had
been pruned to let the sunshine sift through in splotches, but the wild
nature of the place had been skilfully retained. We curved hither and
thither under the giant trees until suddenly, as a whip straightens in
the snapping, one of the ancient tribes of the forest might have sent an
arrow do