"I mean to!" was the calm reply. "I'd like to wring old Smeardon's neck too!" but the broad good humour of the rosy face, the twinkling eyes, belied these truculent words. In spite of infinite powers of mischief, there was not an ounce of vindictiveness in Carnaby de Tracy, though there might be other qualities difficult to deal with. "There's a man to be made there--or to be marred!" said Robinette to herself. IX POINTS OF VIEW Evenings at Stoke Revel were of a dullness all too deep to be sounded and too closely hedged in by tradition and observance to be evaded or shortened by the boldest visitor. Lavendar and the boy would have prolonged their respite in the smoking room had they dared, but in these later days Lavendar found he wished to be below on guard. The thought of Robinette alone between the two women downstairs made him uneasy. It was as though some bird of bright plumage had strayed into a barnyard to be pecked at by hens. Not but what he realised that this particular bird had a spirit of her own, and plenty of courage, but no man with even a prospective interest in a pretty woman, likes to think of the object of his admiration as thoroughly well able to look after herself. She must needs have a protector, and the heaven-sent one is himself. He had to take up arms in her defense on this, the first night of his arrival. Mrs. Loring had gone up to her room for some photographs of her house in America, and as she flitted through the door her scarf caught on the knob, and he had been obliged to extricate it. He had known her exactly four hours, and although he was unconscious of it, his heart was being pulled along the passage and up the stairway at the tail-end of that wisp of chiffon, while he listened to her retreating footsteps. Closing the door he came back to Mrs. de Tracy's side. "Her dress is indecorous for a widow," said that lady severely. "Oh, I don't see that," replied Lavendar. "She is in reality only a girl, and her widowhood has already lasted two years, you say." "Once a widow always a widow," returned Mrs. de Tracy sententiously, with a self-respecting glance at her own cap and the half-dozen dull jet ornaments she affected. Lavendar laughed outright, but she rather liked his laughter: it made her think herself witty. Once he had told her she was "delicious," and she had never forgotten it. "That's going pretty far, my dear lady," he replied. "Not all women are so faithful to a memory as you. I understand Americans don't wear weeds, and to me her blue cape is a delightful note in the landscape. Her dresses are conventional and proper, and I fancy she cannot express herself without a bit of colour." "The object of clothing, Mark, is to cover and to protect yourself, not to express yourself," said Mrs. de Tracy bitingly.