Lady Richard and Fanny Gaston were sitting in the garden by the drawing-room window when the men joined them; Morewood dropped into a chair by Lady Richard and, looking across the lawn, saw May strolling by herself on the walk that bounded the shrubberies. He took his coffee in silence and then lighted his pipe; the vanity of cigarettes was not for him. At last he said confidentially, "I've a sort of feeling that I've made an ass of myself." Lady Richard glanced round; Fanny had gone across to the other group; nobody was in hearing. "Do you know," she said in a low voice, "I believe that man's been up to some trick again. You know how he treated us over the Crusade? Now I suppose he's going to ruin us!" The satisfaction of a justified prophet seemed to mingle with the dismay of a wife and the anger of a sufferer; Lady Richard had expected nothing less all along! "I'm afraid I rather--well, that Lady May didn't like it." "Poor dear May must know what to expect by now." "Perhaps she never knows what to expect. That'd be worse." The remark was a little too subtle for Lady Richard's half-attentive ear. She contented herself with sighing expressively. Morewood looked across the lawn again; the slow-walking figure had disappeared, presumably into the shrubberies. Two or three moments later he saw Marchmont strolling off in that direction, cigar in mouth and hands in pockets. He rose, shook himself, and cried to the brothers, "Oh, in heaven's name, come and play pool." Jimmy refused and paired off with his _fiancee_, but Dick agreed to billiards, saying as they went in, "It'll keep you from making a fool of yourself any more." Morewood, finding his own impression of his conduct thus confirmed, grunted remorsefully as he took down his cue. Marchmont crossed the lawn and the path, and was hidden by the shrubberies. Lady Richard watched till she could see him no more, and then went indoors with another sigh; this last was a disclaimer of responsibility; if Marchmont liked to comfort May, it was no business of hers. He loitered on, not admitting that he was looking for May, but very sore to think that she had wandered away to a sad solitude rather than be with her friends; since she did that, she was wounded indeed. There was a seat round an old tree-trunk at the farther side of the shrubbery; the memory of it really directed his apparently aimless steps, and as he approached it he threw away his half-smoked cigar; he thought he would find her there; what he would say to her he did not know.