events! Just what I
should do, if it were in real life."

"What you do do, you mean, not what you would do, Minx!" said her aunt,
laughing.

And at this stage the shooters were seen advancing across the park, and
the band of ladies, full of importance, descended to luncheon.

Lady Anningford sat next the Crow and told him what they had decided, in
strict confidence, of course.

"We shall have the most delightful fun, Crow. I have thought it all out.
At dessert I am going to hand one of the gold cups in which we are going
to put a glass of some of the Duke's original old Chartreuse, to the
bridal pair, as if to drink their health; and then, when they have drunk
it, I am going to be overcome at the mistake of having given them a
love-potion, just as in the real story! You can't tell--it may bring
them together."

"Queen Anne, you wonder!" said the Crow.

"It is such a deliciously incongruous idea, you see," Lady Anningford
went on. "All of us in long pre-mediaeval garments, with floating hair,
and all of you in modern hunt coats! I should like to have seen Tristram
in gold chain armor."

The Crow grunted approval.

"Ethelrida is going to arrange that they go in to dinner together. She
is going to say it will be their last chance before they get to _King
Mark_. Won't it all be perfect?"

"Well, I suppose you know best," the Crow said, with his wise old head
on one side. "But they are at a ticklish pass in their careers, I tell
you. The balance might go either way. Don't make it too hard for them,
out of mistaken kindness."

"You are tiresome, Crow!" retorted Lady Anningford. "I never can do a
thing I think right without your warning me over it. Do leave it to me."

So, thus admonished, Colonel Lowerby went on with his luncheon.

Zara's eyes looked more stormy than ever, when her husband chanced to
see them. He was sitting nearly opposite her, and he wondered what on
earth she was thinking about. He was filled with a concentrated
bitterness from the events of the morning. Her utter indifference over
the Laura incident had galled him unbearably, although he told himself,
as he had done before, the unconscionable fool he was to allow himself
to go on being freshly wounded by each continued proof of her disdain of
him. Why, when he knew a thing, should he not be prepared for it? He had
a strong will; he _would_ overcome his emotion for her. He could, at
least, make himself treat her, outwardly with the same appa