is my boy,” said the Countess proudly. “He is quite in the English set. There is no body exercise in which he is not an adept—he can even play cricket.”

Lily smiled. She liked Aunt Cosy much better than she did a quarter of an hour ago.

“Aunt Cosy?” she suddenly exclaimed. “Uncle Tom gave me fifty pounds in banknotes, and I think I had better ask you to keep the money for me. You can give me £5 from time to time.”

“Fifty pounds! But how dangerous, dear child! There are many brigands about, especially since the war ended.”

The Countess held out her hand, and Lily took the little leather case out of her bag.

“Angelo, where shall we keep this dear child’s money?”

“In here,” he said briefly, and going over to the ebony and 38ivory cabinet he unlocked it. Then he took the leather case and placed it in one of the drawers. Finally he shut the two folding doors of the cabinet and locked it up, putting the key back into a shabby purse which he had taken out of his pocket.

38

“I hope our friend Ponting has not elected to spend his last evening in the Rooms,” he said uneasily. But his wife answered, “No, no! Were that so we should have heard. Ah, there he is!”

Lily looked out of the window, near which she was still standing, and in the now growing darkness she saw a tall figure come striding across the lawn.

The Countess opened the long French window, and Lily stepped back, instinctively, to allow her to greet her visitor.

He was a big, fair, loose-limbed man, and over his dress-clothes he wore a big, sporting-looking coat.

There was a quick interchange of words. She heard the stranger say, speaking with what seemed to her an American accent, “You’ll have to be angry with me, Countess, for I’ve come to say that I can’t stay to dinner.”

And an exclamation of something like sharp displeasure did come from the Countess’s lips.

“I know I’ve behaved badly—but there it is! Some fellows have persuaded me to spend my last evening with them. You’ve been so kind to me I felt as if I must come up and tell you myself. I’ve got a carriage waiting for me down there.”

Both the Count and 

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