"Saul amongst the prophets!" she laughed. "Since when, might I ask, has Mr. Arbuthnot become an acclimatised Londoner? Really you ought to feel flattered that I recognised you," she added, looking at my black coat and hat and the gardenia in my buttonhole; I had bought it only because other men were wearing them, and I wished to look as little singular as possible. Bandying words with Maud was beyond me. I rested my foot on the step of her carriage, and pretended to be carefully examining it, for into her eyes I dared not look. "I am only waiting in London until I have news from abroad," I answered. "When did you come from Devereux?" "Only yesterday. And I had not thought to see you so soon," she said, in an altered tone. Why was I standing there at Maud's feet? Why had I come into the Park at all? I, who was so little of a man that, amidst all this great crowd of people I was obliged to struggle hard to keep an unmoved countenance and a measured tone. I felt bitterly angry with myself as I answered, with averted face-- "Nor I you. I had forgotten that Devereux was not your home. You live here, do you not?" She smiled indulgently at my ignorance. "We are generally here for the season," she said. "We have a house in Mayfair. Will you come and see me?" I shook my head, and answered bluntly-- "Thank you, no, Miss Devereux." She leaned forward in her carriage, with a sudden increase of animation in her manner. "You are a Don Quixote, Hugh," she said, half angrily, half reproachfully. "How can you be so foolish as to believe that rubbish about my father! Wait till you hear how people talk of him, and then you will know how stupidly mistaken you have been. And he likes you so much, too. You might come and see us whenever you liked, if you would only not be so silly." "How do you do, Miss Devereux?" She turned round quickly, and saw Lord Annerley, who had ridden up to the other side of the carriage. "Lord Annerley! Really, how very surprising! I thought that you had gone off to break the bank at Monaco. Francis said so." "I had meant to go," he began, twirling his little waxen moustache with his small hand, of which he seemed inordinately proud; "but something kept me in London." He looked down at her boldly in a manner which he, no doubt, considered fascinating. Resisting a strong inclination to throw the little cad, with his irreproachable tailor-like get-up into the mud, I raised my hat to Maud, and turned away. But she called me back. "You have not answered me, Mr. Arbuthnot. Is it to be no or yes?" "I am sorry, Miss Devereux, that I have nothing to add to my previous answer," I said stiffly, for her beautiful smiling face seemed to me like the face of a temptress just then.