Not that Joan submitted readily to his _régime_. To Hughie's essentially masculine mind her changes of attitude were a complete mystery. They seemed to have no logical sequence or connection. She would avoid him or seek him out with equal unexpectedness. She might be hopelessly obstinate or disarmingly docile. One day she would behave like a spoilt child; on another she would be a very grandmother to him. Sometimes she would blaze up and rail against her much-enduring guardian for a tyrant and a monster; at others she would take him under a most maternal wing, and steer him through a garden-party or a reception in a manner which made him feel like a lost child in the hands of a benevolent policeman. On one occasion, which he particularly remembered, she had rounded on him and scolded him for a full half-hour for his stolid immobility and lack of _finesse_; the self-same afternoon he had overheard her hotly defending him against a charge of dulness brought by two frivolous damsels over the tea-table. All this was very perplexing to a man who hated subtlety and liked his friends and foes marked in plain figures. It unsettled his own opinions, too. Joey's variegated behaviour prevented him from deciding in his own mind whether he really liked her or not. At present all he was certain of was that he loved her. Meanwhile she was coming to see him--about her financial position. That did not promise romance. And Ursula Harbord was coming too. Help! Certainly life was a rotten business at present. And it had been so full and glorious before he had forsaken the wide world and taken to this sort of thing. It might have been so different too, if only-- Poor Hughie replaced Joan's photograph, sighed again--and coughed confusedly. A funereal image appeared over his shoulder in the chimney-glass. "Were you ringin'?" inquired a sepulchral voice. "Yes, John. Miss Gaymer and a friend of hers are coming to see me this morning. They'll probably stay to lunch. You can clear away that food over there." He returned to his letters. Only one remained unopened, and proved to be from a man with whom he had arranged to shoot in the autumn. "This seems to promise a little relief from the present cheery state of affairs," he mused. "Four men on a nice bleak moor, with no women about! Thank God! A hundred pounds a share. Well, Lord knows, trusteeing is an unprofitable business, but I think I can just do it. I'll accept at once." He began to write a telegram. Bachelors have a habit of conducting their correspondence in this manner. "Here's they twa whigmalearies," announced Mr. Goble dispassionately. He ushered in Lance Gaymer and the histrionic Mr. Haliburton. "After compliments," as they say in official circles, Lance came to the point. "Marrable," he said, after an almost imperceptible exchange of glances with Haliburton, "aren't you keeping my sister rather short of money?" Hughie turned and stared at him in blank astonishment.