They might come and play with him whenever they liked, but they would get a licking, he said. He flattered himself he knew what he was talking about. And while he admitted that he was weak in geography, history, and the use of the globes, he was ready to bet his bottom dollar that he would hold his own at his own favorite game till the end of the chapter. He grew excited and challenged them to bring to the Priory any British poker-player alive, and he would show him a thing or two he, the Britisher, didn’t know. And so, good-humored to the end, but secure and confident in his victories, Denver saw the guests off, and stood at the Priory door waving his hand to the men whom he had made the victims of his skill. Gerard and Arthur were among the last to leave, Arthur being unable to tear himself away from Cora’s side, and Gerard being very anxious, as he always was, for just a last word with Miss Davison. When he got his opportunity, Gerard asked abruptly-- “Why did you pretend you’d never seen Mr. Jones before this evening?” Miss Davison opened wide eyes of surprise. “Really, Mr. Buckland, it’s very hard to have to say so, but don’t you think you are going a little too far? I don’t know what you mean.” “You have met Mr. Cecil Jones before, but this evening you treated him as if he had been a complete stranger.” A light came into her eyes. “Oh, I know whom you take him for,” she said quickly. “The man you saw me with that day--the day when something happened at the stores.” “Yes, yes,” cried he, surprised at her sudden touch of candor. She smiled demurely. “But that man,” she said, with a smile of irritating superior knowledge, “was not Mr. Jones at all. I swear it.” “You swear!” faltered Gerard. “Yes; I’m not at liberty to tell you that man’s name, but--it is not Cecil Jones.” Gerard fell back, bewildered and wounded. He could not bear to face fresh proofs of her duplicity. But was he mistaken? Or was she forsworn? CHAPTER XV The last impression left upon Gerard Buckland’s mind as he went down the drive with Arthur Aldington after they had taken leave of the American family at the Priory, was that of a party of good-humored, unpretending, easy-mannered people, anxious to enjoy life and to make those around them enjoy it also. The group on the door step of the old Elizabethan mansion, as seen partly in the moonlight and partly in the electric light which streamed through the open door of the house, was a striking and a charming one. In the foreground stood the two brothers, Harry, tall, thin, solemn, and perhaps rather unprepossessing but not at all behind the rest of the family in the warmth of his invitation to the departing guests to come again. Denver, the younger, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced, the embodiment of good humor, perhaps rather addicted to his national vice of boastfulness, but on the whole too unaffected and straightforward in manner to be other than pleasing.