Too late! A loud voice in the passage, a heavy step, announced a visitor. The door flew open, and there entered, pushing the startled maid aside, the Honourable Bob Flixton, at the height of his glory, loud, impudent, and unabashed. “Run to earth, my lad!” he cried boisterously. “Run to earth! Run——” He broke off, gaping, as his eyes fell upon poor Mary, who, in making way for him, had partly hidden herself behind the door. He whistled softly, in great amazement, and “Hope I don’t intrude,” he continued. And he grinned; while Vaughan, looking blackest thunder at him, could find no words that were adequate. To think that this loud-voiced, confident fool, the Don Giovanni of the regiment, had stumbled on his pearl! “Well, well, well!” the Honourable Bob resumed, casting down his eyes as if he were shocked. And again: “I hope I don’t intrude,” he continued—it was the parrot cry of that year. “I didn’t know. I’ll take myself off again”—he whistled low—“as fast as I can.” But Vaughan felt that to let him go thus, to spread the tale with a thousand additions and innuendoes, was worst of all. “Wait, if you please,” he said, with a note of sternness in his tone. “I am coming with you, Flixton. Good-morning, Miss Smith.” “See here, won’t you introduce me?” cried the irrepressible Bob. “No!” Vaughan answered curtly, and without staying to reflect. “You will kindly tell Miss Sibson, Miss Smith, that I am obliged, greatly obliged to her. Now come, Flixton! I have done my business, and we are not wanted here.” “I come reluctantly,” said Bob, allowing himself to be dragged out, but not until he had cast a last languishing look at the beauty. And on the doorstep, “Sly dog, sly dog!” he said. “To think that in Bristol, where pretty girls are as scarce as mushrooms in March, there should be such an angel! Damme, an angel! And you the discoverer. It beats all!” “Shut up,” Vaughan answered angrily. “You know nothing about it!” And then, still more sourly, “See here, Flixton, I take it ill of you following me here. It was too cool, I say.” But the Honourable Bob was not quick to quarrel. “I saw you go in, dear chap,” he cried heartily. “I wanted to tell you that the hour of dinner was changed. See? Did my own errand, and coming back thought I’d—truth was, I fancied you’d some little game on hand.” “Nothing of the kind!” The Honourable Bob stopped. “Honour bright? Honour bright?” he repeated eagerly. “Mean to say, Vaughan, you’re not on the track of that little filly?” Vaughan scowled. “Not in the way you mean,” he said sternly. “You make a mistake. She’s a good girl.” Flixton winked. “Heard that before, my lad,” he said, “more than once. From my grandmother. I’ll take my chance of that.”