Neither Miss Damer nor my hostess uttered a word, Lady Adela because her high breeding and immense self-control restrained her; Miss Damer, I shrewdly suspect, because she was engaged in bolting the last evidence of her complicity. But both ladies were regarding me with an expression of pained reproach. I shook myself free from my arboreal surroundings, and smiled weakly. "Have you hurt yourself, Mr. Carmyle?" enquired Lady Adela. "No, thank you," I replied, wondering if I would have received a lighter sentence if I had said yes. "If you should desire to eat fruit at any time," continued Lady Adela in a gentle voice, much as one might address an imbecile subject to sudden attacks of eccentric mania, "one of the gardeners will always be glad to get it for you. You had better go in now and dress, as we start for the races in half an hour. Constance, dearest, run and find Puttick, and ask him if anything can be done for this tree." Miss Damer tripped obediently away in search of the head-gardener, and Lady Adela led me kindly but firmly past the gooseberry-bushes and other sources of temptation to the house. I did not see Miss Damer again until I met her with the others in the hall half an hour later. She projected a sad smile upon me through her motor-veil, and shook her head. "I hope you did n’t hurt yourself," she said softly. "I hope the last plumstone did n’t choke you!" I replied sternly. At this moment Lady Adela joined the party, and pronounced sentence as recorded at the beginning of this chapter. The other five accordingly descended the steps and began to pack themselves into the motor. "May I drive, Dicky?" enquired Miss Damer. No one ever thought of refusing Miss Damer anything. Her request was evidently the merest matter of form, for she was at the wheel almost as soon as she made it. Even Lady Adela merely smiled indulgently. "Constance, _dear child_!" she murmured. Dicky carefully packed his _fiancée_ into the back seat, where his sister had already taken her place. "You had better sit between us, I think," said Miss Beverley. "I am going to sit in front," said Dicky, "in case Connie does anything specially crack-brained with the car. Crick, old friend, just separate these two fair ladies, will you?" Mr. Crick obeyed with alacrity. The Freak, heedless of a tiny cloud upon Miss Beverley’s usually serene brow, stepped up beside Miss Damer. That lady released her clutch-pedal, and the car, spurting up gravel with its back wheels, shot convulsively forward and then began to crawl heavily on its way. "We’ll put something on for you if you aren’t in time for the first race, Bill," called The Freak to me. "What do you want to back?" I inflated my lungs, and replied _fortissimo_:-- "Plumstone!" Miss Damer’s small foot came heavily down upon the accelerator, and the car whizzed down the drive. CHAPTER VII UNEARNED INCREMENT