"Good morning, Sir Thomas." Then Mr. Houston, bowing graciously, left the little back room in Lombard Street, and jumping into a cab, had himself taken straight away to Queen's Gate. "Papa is always like that," said Gertrude. On that day Mrs. Traffick, with all the boots, had taken herself away to the small house in Mayfair, and Gertrude, with her mother, had the house to herself. At the present moment Lady Tringle was elsewhere, so that the young lady was alone with her lover. "But he comes round, I suppose." "If he doesn't have too much to eat,--which disagrees with him,--he does. He's always better down at Glenbogie because he's out of doors a good deal, and then he can digest things." "Then take him down to Glenbogie and let him digest it at once." "Of course we can't go till the 12th. Perhaps we shall start on the 10th, because the 11th is Sunday. What will you do, Frank?" There had been a whisper of Frank's going to the Tyrol in August, there to join the Mudbury Docimers, who were his far-away cousins. Imogene Docimer was a young lady of marvellous beauty,--not possessed indeed of £120,000,--of whom Gertrude had heard, and was already anxious that her Frank should not go to the Tyrol this year. She was already aware that her Frank had--just an artist's eye for feminine beauty in its various shapes, and thought that in the present condition of things he would be better at Glenbogie than in the Tyrol. "I am thinking of wandering away somewhere;--perhaps to the Tyrol. The Mudbury Docimers are there. He's a pal of mine, besides being a cousin. Mrs. Docimer is a very nice woman." "And her sister?" "A lovely creature. Such a turn of the neck! I've promised to make a study of her back head." "Come down to Glenbogie," said Gertrude, sternly. "How can I do that when your governor won't let me enter his house-door even in London?" "But you're here." "Well,--yes;--I am here. But he told me not. I don't see how I'm to drive in at the gate at Glenbogie with all my traps, and ask to be shown my room. I have cheek enough for a good deal, my pet." "I believe you have, Sir;--cheek enough for anything. But mamma must manage it,--mamma and me, between us. Only keep yourself disengaged. You won't go to the Tyrol,--eh?" Then Frank Houston promised that he would not go to the Tyrol as long as there was a chance open that he might be invited to Glenbogie. "I won't hear of it," said Sir Thomas to his wife. On that occasion his digestion had perhaps failed him a little. "He only wants to get my money." "But Gertrude has set her heart on it, and nothing will turn her away." "Why can't she set her heart on some one who has got a decent income. That man hasn't a shilling." "Nor yet has Mr. Traffick."