Alan turned to George as one man of the world to another. “I say, you were pulling my leg, weren’t you? She’s not really your sister?” Old ideas die hard in the young. The resulting hilarity took them out into the hall. “Well, good-night, George,” said Guy, stepping out into the night. “Good-night,” said George. “Good-night, George,” said Monica. “Till to-morrow.” “Till to-morrow,” echoed George dully, and walked back to the drawing-room where he had left the whisky decanter. The drawing-room door was locked. “——” said George with emphasis, and went to bed. Outside in the laurel bushes a dapper figure drew his thick overcoat about him and shivered in the cold night air. “Well, I’ll be hanged if I can make out who’s in it!” muttered the dapper figure, and also went home to bed. And that, so far as we are concerned, was the end of Sunday. The drawing-room door, it is of no interest to record, remained locked until Monday. Until twenty minutes past Monday, to be precise. George’s brain, it must be allowed (and George himself would have been the first to allow it) was not a subtle organ. It worked, much the same as a donkey-engine works; but there is little finesse about a donkey engine. During the early hours of the night George’s brain turned out for him a large number of straightforward schemes for arriving at Manstead the next morning without a passenger; but they were crude. George quite recognised that. The most ingenious was that he should start at six o’clock, before his passenger should so much as have opened an eyelid. Reluctantly George was compelled to reject even this. He had given his word, and unless a plan presented itself to involve the inevitable breaking of this inconvenient tie, and consistently with the ways of perfect gentility as George understood them, he must keep it. It is almost superfluous to add that no plan did present itself. Perhaps Monica had caught something of the notable lack of warmth in George’s voice the previous evening. In any case, she was evidently leaving nothing to chance. A forty-mile motor trip was an event in Monica’s life, and Monica liked her life to be eventful. At half-past nine she presented herself on George’s front-doorstep, hatted, fur-coated and gauntlet-gloved, the complete motorist. George greeted her with ghastly geniality.