"Well?" "Talking of girls, how about uncle and _his_ girl?" "_What's that you say!_" "Nothing, nothing; I oughtn't to have said anything about it. Well, I'm off." He left the room hurriedly and shut the door, before she could call him back he was out of the house. His random remark had hit the target plumb in the centre of the bull's-eye, and could he have known the agitation and irritation in the mind of his aunt he would have written off as paid his debt against the Wallibooboo Islanders. The river was impossible now, and the whole thing had shrunk to luncheon at the studio and a visit to Madame Tussaud's or the Tower. He reached the studio before twelve, and there he found waiting for him Mr Verneede and the Captain. The Captain was in his trousers; he had come to show them as a proof of good faith and incidentally to get a glass of whisky. Leavesley gave him the whisky and sent him off, then he turned to Verneede. "The whole thing has bust up. Miss Lambert is coming at one to go up the river and I have no money. Stoney broke; isn't it the deuce?" "How very unfortunate!" said Mr Verneede. "How very unfortunate!" "Unfortunate isn't the name for it." "Did Miss Lambert write?" "Yes--Oh, she told me to remember her to you, sent her love to you." "Ah!" "I've only got one pound four." "But surely, my dear Leavesley--one pound four--why, it is quite a little sum of money." "It's not enough to go up the river on--three of us." "Why go up the river?" "Where else can we go?" "I have an idea," said Mr Verneede. "May I propound it?" "Yes." "Have you ever heard of Epping Forest?" "Yes." "Why not go there and spend a day amidst the trees, the greenery, the blue sky, the----" "What would it cost?" "A fractional sum; one takes the train to Woodford." Leavesley reached for an A.B.C. guide and plunged into details. "There are hamlets in the forest, where tea may be obtained in cottages at a reasonable cost----" "We can just do it, I think," said Leavesley, who had been making distracted calculations on paper. He darted to the bell and rang it. "Belinda," he said, when the slave of the bell made answer, "there's a lady coming here to luncheon, have you anything in the house?" Belinda, with a far-away look in her eyes, made a mental survey of the larder, twiddling the door-handle to assist thought. "There's a pie, sir, and sassiges, and a cold mutton chop. There's half a chicken----" "That'll do, and get a salad. I'll run out and get some flowers and a bottle of claret." CHAPTER IV THE DAISY CHAIN They were seated in a dusty glade near a road, near Woodford, and they had lost Verneede. The loss did not seem to affect them. Fanny had picked some daisies and was making a chain of them. Leavesley was making and smoking cigarettes. "But what I can't make out," said Leavesley--"This fellow Bevan, you said he was a beast, and now you seem quite gone on him." "I'm not," said Fanny indignantly.