"It strikes me," she looked at him suddenly, "that you're not quite as serious as you make out. You've got all the makings of a very pretty frivoller in you anyway." "I bow to your superior judgment," said Vane gravely. "But I've been commissioned to--er--go and find myself, so to speak, by one who must be obeyed. And in the intervals between periods of cold asceticism when I deal with the highbrows, and other periods when I tackle subjects of national importance first hand, I feel that I shall want relaxation. . . ." "And so you think you'd like me to fill the role of comic relief," she said sweetly. "Thanks a thousand times for the charming compliment." "It doesn't sound very flattering put that way, I must admit," conceded Vane with a grin. "And yet the pleasures of life fill a very important part. I want to find myself in them too. . . ." "I'm glad to see traces of comparative sanity returning," she said, as they turned into the Lodge Gates. "Do you think it's safe to trust yourself to such an abandoned character as I am? What would She who must be obeyed say?" She looked at him mockingly, and involuntarily Vane frowned slightly. At the moment he felt singularly unwilling to be reminded of Margaret. And he was far too old a stager not to realise that he was heading directly for waters which, though they ran amongst charming scenery, contained quite a number of hidden rocks. She saw the sudden frown, and laughed very gently. "Poor young man," she murmured; "poor serious young man. Dare you risk it?" Then Vane laughed too. They had come to the lawn, and her three Colonial patients were approaching. "Put that way," he said, "I feel that it is my bounden duty to take a prolonged course of those pleasures." "Splendid," she cried, and her eyes were dancing merrily. "Come over and lunch to-morrow. You can have Father and Aunt Jane first. You'll like Aunt Jane, she's as deaf as a post and very bloodthirsty--and then you can begin the course afterwards. One o'clock, and it's about half an hour's walk. . . ." With a nod she turned and left him. And if those of her friends who knew Joan Devereux well had seen the look in her eyes as she turned to her three Canadians, they would have hazarded a guess that there was trouble brewing. They would further have hazarded a second guess as to the form it was likely to take. And both guesses would have been right. A young man, remarked Joan to herself, who would be all the better for a fall; a young man who seemed very much too sure of himself. Joan Devereux was quite capable of dealing with such cases as they deserved, and she was a young woman of much experience. CHAPTER VIII