light began to blaze.

"Who are these, Rudolph?"

He cleared his throat, but the process seemed to take some time, and in
the meanwhile he felt the grip of his deliverers relax.

"Who is that lady?" demanded Eleanor.

"His wife," replied the Baroness.

The Baron felt his arms freed now; but still his Alicia waited an
answer. It came at last, but not from the Baron's lips.

"Well, here you all are!" said a cheerful voice behind them.

CHAPTER XXXVII

They turned as though they expected to see an apparition. Nor was the
appearance of the speaker calculated to disappoint such expectations.
Their startled eyes beheld indeed the most remarkable figure that
had ever wheeled a bicycle down the platform of Torrydhulish Station.
Hatless, in evening clothes with blue lapels upon the coat, splashed
liberally with mud, his feet equipped only with embroidered socks and
saturated pumps, his shirt-front bestarred with souvenirs of all the
soils for thirty miles, Count Bunker made a picture that lived long in
their memories. Yet no foolish consciousness of his plight disturbed him
as he addressed the Baron.

"Thank you, Baron, for escorting my fair friends so far. I shall now
take them off your hands."

He smiled with pleasant familiarity upon the two astonished girls, and
then started as though for the first time he recognized the Baroness.

"Baroness!" he cried, bowing profoundly, "this is a very unexpected
pleasure! You came by the early train, I presume? A tiresome journey,
isn't it?"

But bewilderment and suspicion were all that he could read in reply.

"What--what are YOU doing here?"

He was not in the least disconcerted.

"Meeting my cousins" (he indicated the Misses Gallosh and Maddison with
an amiable glance), "whom the Baron has been kind enough to look after
till my arrival."

Audaciously approaching more closely, he added, in a voice intended for
her ear and the Baron's alone--

"I must throw myself, I see, upon your mercy, and ask you not to tell
any tales out of school. Cousins, you know, don't always want their
meetings advertised--do they, Baron?"

Alicia's eyes softened a little.

"Then, they are really your----"

"Call 'em cousins, please! I have your pledge that you won't tell? Ah,
Baron, your charming wife and I understand one another."

Then raising his voice for the benefit of the company generally--

"Well, you two will want to have a little talk in the waiting-room, I've
no dou