ary to all decent custom, I do not know.
Anyhow he met my well-meant attempt to explain Mrs. Harvey-Browne to him
with suspicion, and murmuring something about the English being indeed
very strangely mannered, he edged cautiously away.

We now straggled through the rooms separately,--Ambrose in front with
the guide, his mother by herself, I by myself, and a good way behind us,
the mortified man in spectacles. He made no effort to take my advice and
talk to Ambrose, but kept carefully as far away from the rest of us as
possible; and when we presently found ourselves once more outside the
princely apartments, on the opposite side to the door by which we had
gone into them, he slid forward, shook off his felt slippers with the
finality of one who shakes off dust from his feet, made three rapid
bows, one to each of us, and hurried down the stairs. Arrived at the
bottom we saw him take his stick from the Fraeulein, shake his head with
indignant vigour when she tried to make him take my sunshade too, pull
open the heavy door, and almost run through it. He slammed it with an
energy that made the Jagdschloss tremble.

The Fraeulein looked first at the slammed door, then at the sunshade, and
then up at me. 'Quarrelled,' said the Fraeulein's look as plainly as
speech.

Ambrose looked at me too, and in his eyes was an interrogation.

Mrs. Harvey-Browne looked at me too, and in her eyes was coldest
condemnation. 'Is it possible,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne's eyes, 'that
any one can really marry such a person?'

As for me, I walked downstairs, my face bland with innocence and
unconcern. 'How delightful,' I said enthusiastically, 'how truly
delightful these walls look, with all the antlers and things on them.'

'Very,' said Ambrose.

Mrs. Harvey-Browne was silent. Probably she had resolved never to speak
to me again; but when we were at the bottom, and Ambrose was bestowing
fees on the Fraeulein and the custodian, she said, 'I did not know your
husband was travelling with you.'

'My husband?' I repeated inquiringly. 'But he isn't. He's at home.
Minding, I hope, my neglected children.'

'At home? Then who--then whose husband was that?'

'Was what?' I asked, following her eyes which were fixed on the door so
lately slammed.

'Why, that man in spectacles?'

'Really, how can I tell? Perhaps nobody's. Certainly not mine.'

Mrs. Harvey-Browne stared at me in immense surprise. 'How very
extraordinary,' she said.

THE SI