"You are very gracious," he said, and crossed the room to ring a bell. She remained in the western turret, looking out over the beech woods that blazed golden in the sun to the darker pine-woods beyond. "What a paradise this is!" she said, when he joined her again. His restless eyes followed hers without satisfaction. A certain moodiness had come upon him. He made no answer to her words. "Why doesn't Bunny come up to see me?" he asked suddenly. "He knows I am here." She looked at him in surprise. "Are you expecting him?" He nodded with a touch of arrogance. "Yes. Tell him to come! I shan't quarrel with him or he with me. Is he still thirsting for my blood? He's welcome to it if he wants it." "Charlie!" she protested. He turned from her and sat down at the piano. His fingers began to caress the keys, and then in a moment the old sweet melody that he had played to her in the long ago days came softly through the room. Her lips formed the words as he played, but she made no sound. "There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate. The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near!' And the white rose weeps, 'She is late!' The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear!' And the lily whispers, 'I wait!'" "She is certainly very late," commented Charles Rex quizzically from the piano. "And the lily is more patient than I am. Why don't you sing, Maud of the roses?" She started a little at his voice, but she did not answer. She could not tell him that her throat was dumb with tears. He played softly on for a space, then as the old butler entered with a tea-tray, he abruptly left the piano to wait upon her. He made her sit in the window-seat and presently sat down himself and talked of indifferent things. She did not attempt to bring him back to the matter in hand. She knew him too well for that. If he chose to be elusive, no power on earth could capture him. But she had a strong feeling that he would not seek to elude her wholly. He might seem to trifle, as a monkey swinging idly from bough to bough, but he had an end in view, and ultimately he would reach that end, however circuitous the route. He surprised her eventually by the suddenness with which he pounced upon it. He had turned the talk upon the subject of his new yacht, and very abruptly he announced his intention of going round the world in her. "Not alone?" she said, and then would have checked the words lest they should seem to ask too much. But he answered her without a pause. "Yes, alone. And if I don't come back, Bunny can marry Toby and reign here in my stead. That is, if he isn't an infernal fool. If he is, then Toby can reign here alone--with you and Jake to take care of her." "But, Charlie, why--why?" The words leapt from Maud in spite of her.