it when I want to. Is it the Trents rankling still? I rather enjoyed them."

"Is his name Trent?"

"His name is Trent. Major Trent, D.S.O., and wife, of Thurlow Park, Surrey; he inscribed it in the visitors' book. That's him you hear overhead; they dined upstairs. I've had to put them in the old part of the house, every other corner is full. I don't know what'll happen when he sees his bedroom."

"A line regiment, of course," said Denis, gloomily scornful. "No decent corps would stand him. I wish you'd kick him out."

"That, my young friend, is not the spirit in which one runs a successful hotel. Do you know he's paying me upwards of three guineas a day? Besides, he didn't mean to be rude, he was simply talking over my head. What am I to him? The landlord of a third-rate inn. I'd give myself airs too if I had a place in Surrey and a 1912 Rolls-Royce."

"Insufferable bounder!" said Denis. Gardiner laughed.

"No, no; that he's not. Rather a fine head--a good man gone wrong. Oddly enough, I believe Tom knew him in India. If it's the same man, he got his D.S.O. in South Africa, a very gallant piece of work, and then had to send in his papers because of some row about a woman--a subaltern's wife, to make things pleasant all round. Tom rather liked him, bar his little weakness for the sex. But he must have come into money since--through his wife, I wouldn't mind betting, and that's why he's so civil to her. For he's the sort who's usually more civil to other people's wives."

"I can't think how you can bring yourself to speak to him!" said Denis. He was one of those who find it hard to understand how others can act differently from themselves. Gardiner laughed more than ever.

"We can't all be idealists, my good Denis. I've my bread and butter to earn. I had all my fine feelings knocked out of me long ago. Yes, Miss Marvin, what is it?"

Miss Marvin, a comely, capable woman of forty, seemed a little flustered.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but it's the gentleman in No. 18. He's been at me about his room, and I think"--her voice dropped--"I think he isn't quite himself. If you wouldn't mind speaking to him--"

"What the devil do you mean by putting me to sleep in a hay-loft?"

Miss Marvin jumped, for the gentleman 

 Prev. P 4/255 next