"They do say, sir, that Mrs. Pache is so bad that she says she'll never ride in that dratted motor-car again." "That's bad, Jupp, very bad! I'll go over and enquire to-morrow morning----By the way, when did the accident happen?" "The very day after you left, sir." They were now within the boundaries of Rede Place. The rather fantastic foreign-looking house lay before them, its whiteness softened by the ruddy autumn tints of the trees. Wantele, for the first time in his life, felt a sudden dislike of the place and of its artificial beauty sweep over him. His existence there had only been rendered tolerable, kept warmly human, by the coming and going of Jane Oglander. No doubt she would now be in the hall, waiting for him alone--she always did instinctively the kind, the tactful thing. But for the moment he had no wish to see her. There ran a tremor through him, and the young horse he was driving swerved violently. He flicked the horse sharply on the under side. How--how stupid, how absurd of him to feel like this! While he had been away he had tried to forget Jane, but whenever he was alone, and during the long wakeful hours of each night, his thoughts had enwrapped her more closely than ever. It seemed so strange that she would no longer be free to console him, to chide him, to laugh at and with him. From to-day everything in their relationship would be changed. Even now, Jane was probably with her lover. Wantele averted his thoughts quickly from the vision his morbid imagination forced upon him. Lingard looked the man to be a masterful, a happy wooer. In two or three days the famous soldier would be an inmate of Rede Place--his visit had been arranged just before Wantele had gone away. Richard Maule had himself suggested it. In fact, as Athena had observed on the day following their first acquaintance with Lingard, it seemed absurd that such a man should be staying with the Paches.... They were now close to the house, and the thought of an immediate meeting with Jane became suddenly intolerable to Wantele. "I'll get out here," he said hurriedly, throwing the reins to Jupp. "You can take my bag round while I walk up through the arboretum and let myself in by the Garden Room." In '51, when crystal houses, as they were called for a brief span, became a fashion, Theophilus Joy had built a large conservatory on to one end of his country house. Ugly though it was, the Garden Room, as it soon became called, had greatly added to the amenities of Rede Place. Fragrant and cool in summer, warm and scented in winter, it was considered a delightful novelty by the old banker's guests. Those had been the days when the boy Richard, moving among the amusing and amused worldlings who formed his grandfather's large circle of acquaintances, had not known that there were such things as disease, tragedy, and passion in the world. Let us eat and be merry--so much of his grandfather's philosophy young Richard had imbibed, and no more.