"Not a straw," said Harry, shaking his head. She clapped her hands, tore it into tiny pieces, and threw it in the basket. Then she said, in a low voice of deep gratitude-- "Oh, Harry, you are sweet! Do forgive me." "I don't see that there's anything to forgive," said Harry. "Yes, there is; lots. I'm afraid I've been horrid. I'll never bother you about any thing again." She was simply beaming. "Good," answered Harry indifferently. But as he followed her into the garden he looked rather perplexed. He felt that this sort of thing was not leading up very well to what he would have to tell her soon. However, why spoil a lovely day by thinking of it? Like a schoolboy with his holiday task before him, he put it off as long as possible. Though he didn't own it to himself, and was disdainfully amused at Alec's letter, still the thought of Algie Thynne, moonlight nights on the yacht, topping weather, and his own neglect, gave him some cause for alarm. Algie Thynne was _crible_ with debts, and probably keen on marrying for money. Contemptible young ass! Why didn't he _work_? Harry despised him. At the earliest opportunity (which, by the way, did not arise until he had made an excuse to go into the village, where he wrote at the post office) the answer was sent. Even Harry found the beginning of the letter too difficult, so he always began (as Valentia might have said) without a beginning, which impressed Miss Walmer much more. Ever since he had reached the age of discretion, which, in his case, was at his majority, Harry had been thoroughly trained in the habit of writing letters that gratified the recipient enormously without compromising the writer in the slightest degree. The habitual dread of those _betes noires_ of Don Juan--the breach of promise case and the Divorce Court--had got him into the way of writing the sort of letter that he would have had no objection to hear read aloud in court. Perhaps that was why the sentences were always polished, and the meaning a little vague. "... I don't speak your language, perhaps, but I understand your letter, reading between the lines. It came like a whiff of fresh sea air. Yes, it would be delightful to be on board _Flying Fish_ now. However, no doubt Algie Thynne--(_how_ eloquently, by the way, you describe him! putting all the complications of his character and the dazzling charm of his personality in a nutshell by the simple sentence '_He's rather a nut!_')--amply compensates for my absence. You ask if I know him. I do, though perhaps more by reputation than anything else. We have met once or twice. Where? I can't quite recall. Perhaps at the Oratory, or at the Supper Club or some place of that sort. But somehow I never pursued his acquaintance, nor did it ever ripen into friendship. I felt, instinctively, that he was too clever for me.