But as he spoke he was aware that in Winfrith's book there was no mention of Downing, and that though at the time of the writer's sojourn in Persia no other Englishman had wielded there so great a power, or so counteracted influences inimical to his country's interests. 'No, I did not see him there. At the time of Mr. Winfrith's stay in Teheran'--Downing spoke with an indifference the other thought studied--'I was in America, where I have to go from time to time to see my partners.' He added, with a smile: 'I think you are mistaken in saying that Mr. Winfrith only spent six weeks in Persia. In any case, his book is good--very good.' 'I suppose,' said Wantley, turning to his cousin, 'that you have arranged for Winfrith to come over to-morrow, or Monday?' 'Oh no,' she answered hurriedly. 'He is going to be away for the next few days; after that, perhaps, Sir George Downing will meet him.' She spoke awkwardly, and Wantley felt he had been clumsy. But he thought that now he thoroughly understood what had happened. Winfrith had evidently no wish to meet informally the man whom his chief had not been willing to receive. Doubtless Penelope had done her best to bring her important new friend in contact with her old friend. She had failed, hence her awkward, hesitating answer to his question. But the young man knew his cousin, and the potency of her spell over obstinate Winfrith; he had no doubt that within a week the two men would have met under her roof, 'though whether the meeting will lead to anything,' he said to himself, 'remains to be seen.' Wantley was, however, quite wrong. During the hours which Mrs. Robinson had spent that day riding with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the name of Persian Downing had not once been mentioned, and at this very moment David Winfrith, playing, after an early dinner, a game of chess with his old father, saw in imagination his lovely friend acting as kind hostess to her mother, for whom he himself had never felt any particular liking, and to Miss Wake and her niece, against both of whom he had an unreasonable prejudice. Lord Wantley he believed to be still away; and, as he allowed his father to checkmate him, he felt a pang of annoyance at the thought that he himself was going to be absent during days of holiday which might have been so much better employed, in part at least, in Penelope's company. Not for many months, not, when he came to think of it, for some two years, had Mrs. Robinson been at once so joyously high-spirited and yet so submissive, so intimately confidential while yet so willing to take advice--in a word, so enchantingly near to himself, as she had been that day, riding along the narrow lanes which lay in close network behind the bare cliffs and hills bounding the coast.