"The most ignorant duffer in the world could lay you a stymie if---" the loud-voiced golfer was complaining just at that instant. The man he was addressing was nodding his head politely and at the same time trying to hear what was being said at the round table. "Joe Dauntless is good enough for anybody's daughter," vouchsafed the blase man in corduroys. "He's a ripping good fellow," again said Mrs. Scudaway. "Mrs. Thursdale's got an English governess for her kids, an English butler, an English bull terrier, and a new Cobden-Sanderson binding on that antique History of England she talks so much about," observed Carter. "And she's beginning to wear her evening gowns on the street in the morning. Besides, her shoes lob over at the heels," remarked the rangy Mrs. Carter. "Yes, she's getting to be thoroughly English. I've noticed a tendency to chirp like a bird when she talks, too." "That governess is a mighty stunning girl, by the way," said Rolfe. "She's been over here a year, you know," said Mrs. Scudaway, with no apparent relevancy. "Have you heard when Eleanor's engagement is to be announced?" asked Miss Ratliff. "I'm not supposed to tell, but I have it on the best authority that it will be announced next week, and the wedding will take place in November. I suppose they'll ask Joe Dauntless to be an usher," said Mrs. Carter. "Hello! Joe's gone outside. He must have heard something we said," said Rolfe, setting his highball glass down with a thump. "Oh, if he had only been educated at Cambridge instead of in Cambridge," mourned Mrs. Carter. It was true that the tall, good-looking Mr. Dauntless had left the room, but not because he had heard the comments of his friends. He was standing on the wind-swept verandah, peering through the mist toward a distant splash of light across the ravine to the right of the club grounds. The fog and mist combined to run the many lights of the Thursdale windows into a single smear of colour a few shades brighter than the darkness from which it protruded. Dauntless's heart was inside that vague, impressionistic circle of colour, but his brain was very much in evidence on the distant outside. What were the workings of that eager brain will soon be revealed--to the reader, at least, if not to the occupants of the rain-bound clubhouse.