There are men proof against the blandishments of women, charm they never so wisely, but none entirely unsusceptible to a child's naïve advances. Graeme flicked the supple rod to and fro over his shoulder. "Right-ho!" he said gruffly, and then after a half-awkward pause added: "Would you like a peach?" The boy signified assent to the proposal, and they skirted the flower-beds, leaving the house on their left and entered the walled garden. Cornelius James rapidly disposed of two peaches and a pear while Graeme stood watching him with a smile lurking about the corners of his mouth. "Better take some back for the other sprites," he said, and gathered four peaches. "Here you are--two each. Shove 'em in your pockets." Cornelius James gravely accepted the gift, and prepared to depart. "Thanks awfully," he said, and hesitated. "I say, would you mind if I took one back for Miss Mayne? She loves peaches." "I'd forgotten Miss Mayne," he said. "Of course she can have some. Here! Where's your cap?" He selected and picked the fruit with a preoccupied air, then suddenly; "Does--does Miss Mayne play hide and seek?" Cornelius James nodded. "She plays everything," he said with enthusiasm. "You wait!" They had regained the terrace and stood looking out across the smiling countryside. "You haven't seen Miss Mayne yet, have you?" "No," said Graeme. He stood motionless for a minute after his visitor had departed, watching the small figure dwindling in the distance. Then drawing the letter from his pocket he opened and read it. It was a formal acceptance of half a dozen lines written in a clear, round, rather girlish hand and signed "Claire Mayne." But the reader scrutinised it as if it had been a photograph, and re-read it twice ere he replaced it in his pocket and walked slowly back to the house. "I wonder what she looks like," he said, musing, and then remembered rather uneasily that he had omitted to mention to his visitor the absence of the mistress of the household. In the hall he encountered the housekeeper. "Oh, Mrs. Mackworth, those children are coming to tea to-morrow. I shall be in, and I will--er--entertain them." Mrs. Mackworth, who had had in contemplation a tea-party to two cronies in her own room, looked relieved at the intelligence. "Then you won't require my presence, Mr. Graeme?" "No, thank you," replied Graeme, with the desperate calm of a man who had deliberately burned his boats. 4 The following morning found the children in a glow of pleasurable anticipation which their landlady, on learning of the impending visit, cheerfully fanned to fever pitch. She had been a housemaid "up at the house" in her youth, and held the children spellbound with her description of its glories.