Yet it seemed that on the Saturday after his arrival he could no longer decently put off his insistent host. He consented to accompany him in the motor-car. Rotten judging it was on the part of Belknap-Jackson. He should have listened to me. They departed after luncheon, the host at the wheel. I had his account of such following events as I did not myself observe. “Our country club,” he observed early in the drive. “No one there, of course. You’d never believe the trouble I’ve had----” “Jolly good club,” replied his lordship. “Drive back that way.” “Back that way,” it appeared, would take them by the detached villa of the Klondike person. “Stop here,” directed his lordship. “Shan’t detain you a moment.” This was at two-thirty of a fair afternoon. I am able to give but the bare facts, yet I must assume that the emotions of Belknap-Jackson as he waited there during the ensuing two hours were of a quite distressing nature. As much was intimated by several observant townspeople who passed him. He was said to be distrait; to be smoking his cigarettes furiously. At four-thirty his lordship reappeared. With apparent solicitude he escorted the Klondike person, fetchingly gowned in a street costume of the latest mode. They chatted gayly to the car. “Hope I’ve not kept you waiting, old chap,” said his lordship genially. “Time slips by one so. You two met, of course, course!” He bestowed his companion in the tonneau and ensconced himself beside her. “Drive,” said he, “to your goods shops, draper’s, chemist’s--where was it?” “To the Central Market,” responded the lady in bell-like tones, “then to the Red Front store, and to that dear little Japanese shop, if he doesn’t mind.” “Mind! Mind! Course not, course not! Are you warm? Let me fasten the robe.” I confess to have felt a horrid fascination for this moment as I was able to reconstruct it from Belknap-Jackson’s impassioned words. It was by way of being one of those scenes we properly loathe yet morbidly cannot resist overlooking if opportunity offers. Into the flood tide of our Saturday shopping throng swept the car and its remarkably assembled occupants. The street fair gasped. The woman’s former parade of the Honourable George had been as nothing to this exposure. “Poor Jackson’s face was a study,” declared the Mixer to me later. I dare say. It was still a study when my own turn came to observe it. The car halted before the shops that had been designated. The Klondike person dispatched her commissions in a superbly leisured manner, attentively accompanied by the Earl of Brinstead bearing packages for her. Belknap-Jackson, at the wheel, stared straight ahead. I am told he bore himself with dignity even when some of our more ingenuous citizens paused to converse with him concerning his new motor-car. He is even said to have managed a smile when his passengers returned.