Swallowing down her coffee, she got up and sought the drawing-room. On the sofa was her Aunt’s embroidery thrown down, and she gazed at it with a feeble interest. An intricate old French design needing many coloured wools—grey rabbits looking archly over their shoulders at long, curious, yellow dogs seated on yellower haunches, with red eyes and tongues hanging out; leaves and flowers, too, and here and there a bird, all set in a background of brown wool. Tens of thousands of stitches, which, when finished, would lie under glass on a little table, and last till they were all dead and no one knew who had wrought them. “Tout lasse, tout passe! The strains of Rigoletto still came floating from the basement. Really Augustine must have drama in her soul, to be listening to a whole opera.

“La Donna è mobile!”

Dinny took up her book, the Memoirs of Harriette Wilson; a tome in which no one kept any faith to speak of except the authoress, and she only in her own estimation; a loose, bright, engaging, conceited minx, with a good heart and one real romance among a peck of love affairs.

“La Donna è mobile!” It came mocking up the stairs, fine and free, as if the tenor had reached his Mecca. Mobile! No! That was more true of men than of women! Women did not change. One loved—one lost, perhaps! She sat with closed eyes till the last notes of that last act had died away, then went up to bed. She passed a night broken by dreams, and was awakened by a voice saying:

“Someone on the telephone for you, Miss Dinny.”

“For me? Why! What time is it?”

“Half-past seven, miss.”

She sat up startled.

“Who is it?”

“No name, miss; but he wants to speak to you special.”

With the thought ‘Wilfrid!’ she jumped up, put on a dressing-gown and slippers, and ran down.

“Yes. Who is it?”

“Stack, miss. I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but I thought it best. Mr. Desert, miss, went to bed as usual last night, but this morning the dog was whining in his room, and I went in, and I see he’s not been in bed at all. He must have gone out very early, because I’ve been about since half-past six. I shouldn’t have disturbed you, miss, only I didn’t like the look of him last night… Can you hear me, miss?”

“Yes. Has he taken any clothes or anything?”

“No, miss.”

“Did anybody come to see him last night?”

“No, miss. But a letter came by hand about half-past nine. I noticed him distraight, miss, when I took the whisky in. Perhaps it’s nothing, but being so sudden, I… Can you hear me, miss?”

“Yes. I’ll dress at once and come round. Stack, can you get me a taxi, or, better, a car, by the time I’m there?”

“I’ll get a car, miss.”

“Is there any service to the Continent he could have caught?”

“Nothing before nine o’clock.”

“I’ll be round as quick as I can.”

“Yes, miss. Don’t you worry, miss; he might be wanting exercise or something.”

Dinny replaced the receiver and flew upstairs.

Wilfred’s taxi-cab, whose tank he had caused to be filled to the brim, ground slowly up Haverstock Hill towards the Spaniard’s Road. He looked at his watch. Forty miles to Royston—even in this growler he would be there by nine! He took out a letter and read it through once more.

‘Whenever and wherever I first find you unprotected by the presence of a lady!’ That would be sooner than the swine thought! A pity the fellow was so much older than himself.

The cab had reached the top now, and was speeding along the lonely Spaniard’s Road. In the early glistening morning the view was worth a poet’s notice, but Wilfrid lay back in the cab, unseeing, consumed by his thoughts. Something to hit at. This chap, at any rate, should no longer sneer at him! He had no plan except to be publicly on hand at the first possible moment after reading those words: “Unprotected by the presence of a lady!” Taken as sheltering behind a petticoat? Pity it was not a real duel! The duels of literature jig-sawed in his brain—Bel Ami, Bazarov, Dr. Slammer, Sir Lucius O’Trigger, D’Artagnan, Sir Toby, Winkle—all those creatures of fancy who had endeared the duel to readers. Duels and runs on banks, those two jewels in the crown of drama– gone! Well, he had shaved—with cold water!—and dressed with as much care as if he were not going to a vulgar brawl. The dandified Jack Muskham and a scene of low violence! Very amusing! The cab ground and whirred its way on through the thin early traffic of market and milk carts; and Wilfrid sat drowsing after his almost sleepless night. Barnet he passed, and Hatfield, and the confines of Welwyn Garden City, then Knebworth, and the long villages of Stevenage, Graveley and Baldock. Houses and trees seemed touched by unreality in the fine haze. Postmen, and maids on doorsteps, boys riding farm horses, and now and then an early cyclist, alone inhabited the outdoor world. And, with that wry smile on his lips and his eyes half closed, he lay back, his feet pressed against the seat opposite. He had not to stage the scene, nor open the brawl. He had but to deliver himself, as it were registered, so that he could not be missed.

The cab slowed up.

“We’re gettin’ near Royston, governor; where d’you want to go?”

“Pull up at the inn.”

The cab resumed its progress. The morning light hardened. All, now, was positive, away to the round, high-lying clumps of beeches. On the grassy slope to his right he saw a string of sheeted race-horses moving slowly back from exercise. The cab entered a long village street, and near its end stopped at an hotel. Wilfrid got out.

“Garage your cab. I’ll want you to take me back.”

“Right, governor.”

He went in and asked for breakfast. Just nine o’clock! While eating he enquired of the waiter where the Briery was.

“It’s the long low ’ouse lying back on the right, sir; but if you want Mr. Muskham, you’ve only to stand in the street outside ’ere. ‘E’ll be passing on his pony at five past ten; you can set your watch by him going to his stud farm when there’s no racing.”

“Thank you, that will save me trouble.”

At five minutes before ten, smoking a cigarette, he took his position at the hotel gate. Girt-in, and with that smile, he stood motionless, and through his mind passed and repassed the scene between Tom Sawyer and the boy in the too-good clothes, walking round each other with an elaborate ritual of insults before the whirlwind of their encounter. There would be no ritual today! ‘If I can lay him out,’ he thought, ‘I will!’ His hands, concealed in the pockets of his jacket, kept turning into fists; otherwise he stood, still as the gatepost against which he leaned, his face veiled in the thin fume rising from his cigarette. He noticed with satisfaction his cabman talking to another chauffeur outside the yard, a man up the street opposite cleaning windows, and a butcher’s cart. Muskham could not pretend this was not a public occasion. If they had neither of them boxed since schooldays, the thing would be a crude mix-up; all the more chance of hurting or being hurt! The sun topped some trees on the far side and shone on his face. He moved a pace or two to get the full of it. The sun– all good in life came from the sun! And suddenly he thought of Dinny. The sun to her was not what it was to him. Was he in a dream—was she real? Or, rather, were she and all this English business some rude interval of waking? God knew! He stirred and looked at his watch. Three minutes past ten, and there, sure enough, as the waiter had said, coming up the street was a rider, unconcerned, sedate, with a long easy seat on a small well-bred animal. Closer and closer, unaware! Then the rider’s eyes came round, there was a movement of his chin. He raised a hand to his hat, checked the pony, wheeled it and cantered back.