"I shouldn't think your chauffeurs live very long, do they?"

"On the contrary, they grow old in our service."

"I can believe you," said I heartily. "I myself have aged considerably since we left Highlands."

By this time we had flung through and out of the beechwood, and the car was storming past stretches of gleaming bracken, all red and gold and stuck with spreading oak trees that stood sometimes alone, sometimes in groups of two or three together, and made you think of staring cattle standing knee-deep in a golden flood.

The car tore on.

"We're coming to where I used to gather the mushrooms," my companion announced.

"Barefoot?"

"Sometimes."

"Because of the dew?"

She nodded.

I sighed. Then—

"Up to now I've been feeling like a large brandy and a small soda," I said. "Now I feel like a sonnet. What is your name, and who gave you that name?"

"I'm sure that's not necessary. I've seen a sonnet 'To a lady upon her birthday.'"

"As you please. Shall I post it to you or pin it to a tree in Battersea Park?"

Miss Childe nodded her head in the direction in which we were going.

"That," she said, "is the house."

At the end of a long avenue of elms I could see the bold flash of windows which the afternoon sun had set afire, and a moment later we swept by the front of an old red mansion and round into a paved court that lay on its farther side.

Here was a door open, and in front of this my companion brought the car to a standstill.

I handed her out. She rang the bell and entered. I followed her in.

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