rbara took him aside.

"She's rather a dear, in spite of everything, and I think you're
treating her abominably."

Jaffery grew scarlet beneath the brick-coloured glaze.

"I wouldn't treat any woman abominably, if I could help it."

"Well, you can help it--" and taking pity on him, she laughed in his
face. "Can't you take her as a joke?"

He glanced quietly at the lady. "Rather a heavy one," he said.

"Anyhow come and talk to us and be civil to her. Imagine she's the
Vicar's wife come to call."

Jaffery's elementary sense of humour was tickled and he broke out into a
loud guffaw that sent the house cat, a delicate mendicant for food,
scuttling across the lawn. The sight of the terror-stricken animal
aroused the rest of the party to harmless mirth.

"Tell me, Mrs. Prescott," said Adrian, "was he allowed to do that in
Albania?"

"I guess there aren't many things Jaff Chayne can't do in Albania,"
replied Liosha. "He has the _bessas_ that carry him through and he's as
brave as a lion."

"I suppose you like brave men?" said Doria.

"A woman who married a coward would be a damn fool--especially in
Albania. I guess there aren't many in my mountains."

"I wish you would tell us about your mountains," said Barbara
pleasantly.

"And at the same time," said I, "Jaff might let us hear his story. That
is to say if you have no objection, Mrs. Prescott."

"With us," said Liosha, "the guest is expected to talk about himself;
for if he's a guest he's one of the family."

"Shall I go ahead then?" asked Jaffery, "and you chip in whenever you
feel like it?"

"That would be best," replied Liosha.

And having lit a cigarette and settled herself in her deck-chair, she
motioned to Jaffery to proceed. And there in the shade of the old
wistaria arbour, surrounded by such dainty products of civilisation as
Adrian (in speckless white flannels and violet socks) and the tea-table
(in silver and egg-shell china) this pair of barbarians told their tale.

CHAPTER V

It is some years now since that golden August afternoon, and my memory
of the details of the story of Liosha as told by Jaffery and illustrated
picturesquely by the lady herself is none of the most precise.
Incidentally I gathered, then and later in the smoking-room from Jaffery
alone, a prodigious amount of information about Albania which, if I had
imprisoned it in writing that same evening as the perfect diarist is
supposed to do, would have been vastly us