‘Hasn’t he!’ Teresa concurred; ‘but we have had him precisely a fortnight. You know that Watling Street, like all great high-roads, is infested with tramps. Micky was a Watling Street tramp. He came to the house one day to shelter from a bad thunderstorm. He said he was from Limerick, and badly in need of work. I was at school in a Limerick convent for five years, and I liked his Irish ways and speech. We happened to be desperately in need of an odd man, and so I persuaded father to engage him on trial. Micky is on trial for a month. I do hope he will stop with us. He doesn’t know very much about motor-cars, but we are teaching him, and he does understand horses and the garden.’ ‘Only a fortnight!’ was all Richard’s response. ‘Yes, but it seems years,’ said the girl. ‘I was much struck by his attractive manner,’ said Richard, ‘when he came to my room last night with your message.’ ‘My message?’ ‘Yes, about breakfast.’ ‘That must be a mistake,’ said Teresa. ‘I never sent any message.’ ‘He said that you desired to remind me that breakfast was at seven o’clock.’ Teresa laughed. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘that’s just like Micky, just like Micky.’ The frank, innocent gaiety of that laugh made Richard forget Teresa’s fibs of the previous night. He could think of nothing but her beauty, her youth, her present candour. He wished to warn her. In spite of the obvious foolishness of such a course, he wished to warn her--against herself. ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Miss Craig,’ he said suddenly, and all the time he cursed himself for saying it, ‘that Mr. Craig’s--er--mode of life, and your own, might expose you to the trickeries of scoundrels, or even to the curiosity of the powers that be? Permit me, though our acquaintance is so brief and slight, to warn you against believing that things are what they appear to be.’ There was a pause. ‘Mr. Redgrave,’ she said slowly, ‘do you mean to imply----’ ‘I mean to imply nothing whatever, Miss Craig.’ ‘But you must----’ ‘Listen. I saw you at the circus yesterday, and in the----’ He stopped at the word ‘chalk-pit.’ He thought that perhaps he had sacrificed himself sufficiently. ‘At the circus!’ she exclaimed, then blushed as red as the vermilion wheels of the electric car. ‘You are an excessively rude man!’ she said. ‘I admit it,’ he answered. ‘But I forgive you,’ she continued, more mildly; ‘your intentions are generous.’ ‘They are,’ said Richard, and privately called himself a hundred different sorts of fool. Why, why had he warned her against espionage? Why had he stultified his own undertaking, the whole purpose of his visit to Queen’s Farm, Hockliffe? Was it because of her face? Was Richard Redgrave, then, like other foolish young men in spring? He admitted that it appeared he was.