So she gave the story of her mishap; said she would have to send the bicycle to Salterne, it must go in on Saturday by Timothy Batt’s cart; gave her message about the stores, and made talk of a mildly distracting nature. Adrian was gloomily turning a magazine; he looked up. "It’s all knocked on the head about our sailing, Pam," he said, "pretty rotten! Fancy having to see the old _Messenger_ moored out there the whole blessed summer, and have nothing but our dinghy to go out in! It’s enough to make a person of sense commit suicide." "Hughie told me something when I got in," said Pamela with sympathy, "I was awfully sorry; he said Penberthy is wanted at Crown Hill. Of course the gardens are too much for Jordan--there used to be three men." Adrian muttered something biting about gardens generally. Christobel broke in. "Mollie told us--she is most horribly disappointed herself--it cuts off her fun too, but she says the gardens must come first, as Lady Shard hates seeing things go--as they are; and men are so scarce, they want every creature they can get on the farms, of course. Oh dear, I wish one could get at Sir Marmaduke, he’s always nice about the yawl." "Why don’t you ask him yourself?" suggested Pamela. Both the others began to answer together in their eagerness; then Christobel dropped out, and Adrian went on. "How can we, my good child? We can’t exactly write letters to him asking him to hand over his yawl to us! As for talking, we shan’t meet till goodness knows when--August at earliest." Pamela suggested cautiously that Sir Marmaduke usually came for week-ends in the summer. "Well, he may have, once in a way," allowed Adrian gloomily, "but he won’t do it this year. Not a dreg of hope. He hasn’t been down, and he’s not coming. Government has put him on one of these hundred and fifty thousand commissions about miners’ bath-rooms, or railway men’s sofa cushions! It makes one ill. I wish the whole lot were at the bottom of Vesuvius. We can burn wood, and drive coaches, and go back to decent life. Anyway there it is. We can’t get at Sir Marmaduke. Penberthy has got to do gardening----" his voice ceased in a sigh that was a positive groan. "One would almost think you three--I mean Mollie and Crow and you--would do as well without Penberthy," said Pamela, "Penberthy does nothing ever but talk, does he? Mollie is as good as any man, she’s pretty well trained her muscles on the land--and all that----" this was an allusion to the heroic efforts of Miss Shard on the Ensors’ farm at Hawksdown during the holidays of two war years at least. "Of _course_ she could, Pam," Christobel interrupted hastily, noting Adrian’s rising irritation, "but you see Mollie won’t be here either." "Mollie not here!" Pamela’s face of startled dismay was satisfactory to the distressed pair. "You see," said Adrian, "things have pretty well tumbled about our ears this afternoon! Well, the bottom has been knocked out of the whole show."