As the correspondents marched away to take the special train provided for them at Kildare by Ardmore, they continued to cheer, and they were still demanding, as long as their cries could be heard at Ardsley: What did he say to him? What did he say to him? _What did who say?_ What did the governor of North Carolina SAY To the governor of South Carolina? With a sigh Ardmore left them at the great gates of Ardsley and returned to the house to find Jerry; but that young woman was the center of a wide circle of admiring militia officers, and the master of Ardsley was so depressed by the spectacle that he sought a dim corner of the grounds where there was a stone bench by a fountain, and there, to his confusion, he beheld Miss Barbara Osborne and Henry Maine Griswold; and Miss Osborne, it seemed, was in the act of fastening a white rose in Professor Griswold's coat. CHAPTER XXI GOOD-BY TO JERRY DANGERFIELD The next morning Ardmore knocked at Griswold's door as early as he dared, and went in and talked to his friend in their old intimate fashion. The associate professor of admiralty was shaving himself with care. "You won't have any hard feelings about that scarlet fever business, will you, Grissy? It was downright selfish of me to want to keep the thing to myself, but I thought it would be fun to go ahead and carry it through and then show you how well I pulled it off." "Don't ever refer to it again, if you love me," spluttered Griswold amiably, as he washed off the lather. "I, too, have ruled over a kingdom, and I have seen history in the making, _quorum pars magna fui_." "But I say, Grissy, there is such a thing as fate and destiny and all that after all; don't you believe it?" "Don't I believe it! I know it!" thundered Griswold, reaching for a towel. He lifted a white rose from a glass of water where it had spent the night and regarded it tenderly. "The right rose under the right star, and the thing's done; the rose, the star and the girl,--the combination simply can't be beat, Ardy." Ardmore seized and wrung his friend's hand, for the twentieth time; but he was preoccupied, and Griswold, fastening his collar at the mirror, hummed softly the couplet: With the winking eye For my battle-cry. "Grissy!" shouted Ardmore, "she never did it!" "Oh--bless my soul, what was I saying! Why, of course she wasn't the one! Not Miss Dangerfield--never!" "Well, you like her, don't you?" demanded Ardmore petulantly. "Of course I like her, you idiot! She's wonderful. She's--" He frowned upon the scarf he had chosen with much care, snapped it to shake the wrinkles out, humming softly, while Ardmore glared at him.