true?" "I have not been to Florence, but the picture gallery notion is all right. When I was a youngster I came here often, and my--my people always--well, you see----" He nibbled his mustache in dismay, for it was hard to keep up a pretense when Cynthia was so near. She ended the sentence for him. "You came to the Bath Hotel. Why not stay there to-night?" "I would like it very much, if you have no objection." "Just the opposite. But--please forgive me for touching on money matters--the charges may be rather dear. Won't you let me tell the head waiter to--to include your bill with ours?" "On the strict condition that you deduct twelve shillings from my account," he said, stealing a glance at her. "I shall be quite business-like, I promise." She was smiling at the landscape, or at some fancy that took her, perhaps. But it followed that a messenger was sent for Dale to the hostelry where he had booked a room for his master, and that Mrs. Devar, after one stony and indignant glare, whispered to Cynthia in the dining-room: "Can that man in evening dress, sitting alone near the window, by any possibility be our chauffeur?" "Yes," laughed the girl. "That is Fitzroy. Say, doesn't he look fine and dandy? Don't you wish he was with us--to order the wine? And, by the way, is there a pier at Bournemouth?" CHAPTER IV SHADOWS--WITH OCCASIONAL GLEAMS Mrs. Devar ate her soup in petrified silence. Among the diners were at least two peers and a countess, all of whom she knew slightly; at no other time during the last twenty years would she have missed such an opportunity of impressing the company in general and her companion in particular by waddling from table to table and greeting these acquaintances with shrill volubility. But to-night she was beginning to be alarmed. Her youthful protégée was carrying democratic training too far; it was quite possible that a request to modify an unconventional freedom of manner where Fitzroy was concerned would meet with a blank refusal. That threatened a
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