“I should have thought you had had walking enough for one day,” grumbled Cyril, but Caerleon was already outside, and he was obliged to address the remainder of his complaint to his cigar. “He walks with her all morning, does he? and then goes out again to think about her? I ought to have foreseen this. That’s the drawback of the kind of life we’ve been leading for a man of Caerleon’s stamp. He’s scarcely spoken to a lady since the Governor died, and now the first decent-looking girl he meets bowls him over at once. What a blessing it is that I’m not susceptible!” Caerleon’s walk lasted for over two hours, and Cyril, with a telegram in his hand, was awaiting him impatiently when he returned. “Back at last!” he said. “Do see what this is. It may be to summon us home about something, or it may be from Temeszy.” “It is from Temeszy,” said Caerleon, opening it. “The steward must have telegraphed to him yesterday as soon as we were gone. He has business in Paris which will keep him there for more than a month, but he wants us to take up our quarters at the castle, ride his horses, hunt his wolves, or whatever else in the way of game there may be about, and so on--in fact, use the house as if it was our own.” “Well, what do you think?” asked Cyril. “If you ask me,” said Caerleon, slowly, “I think that we might as well have stayed at Llandiarmid as bury ourselves out there without Temeszy or any one to speak to.” “I see,” said Cyril. “You mean to stay on here for the present, then?” “Yes, I think we might.” “But you forget that Mr or M. O’Malachy is coming back. What is one to call a fellow who has an Irish father and a Sarmatian mother, and has been brought up abroad? But anyhow, he is coming, and we have got his room.” “I forgot that,” said Caerleon, rather crestfallen. “We must find out to-night when he is expected. There’s no need to leave until he comes.” Once more Cyril drew dark inferences from his brother’s words, but he made no remark, and at the appointed time they presented themselves in Madame O’Malachy’s _salon_, where a most cordial welcome awaited them. They were the only guests, and it fell naturally to Caerleon to escort his hostess to the table and to sit beside her, a privilege for which he was not as grateful as he ought to have been, for he could hear Cyril and Nadia wrangling busily throughout the meal. Guessing that his brother was treating Mdlle. O’Malachy to a little _fin de siècle_ philosophy, he had no difficulty in imagining the light in which it would strike her, and his anxiety to hear what she was saying in reply distracted his attention a little from her mother, who conversed vivaciously in French, addressing him as “_mon cher marquis_” in a way that reminded him vaguely of the Molière he had read when at school.