"How painfully precise!" she remarked. "Somehow, it doesn't sound convincing, though. Your watch is probably like your morals." "What a flattering simile!" he murmured. "Flattering?" "It presupposes, at any rate, their existence," he explained. "It is years since I was reminded of them." Wilhelmina seated herself before an open card-table. "No doubt," she answered. "You see I knew you when you were a boy. Seriously," she continued, "I have been engaged with my agent for the last half-hour--a most interesting person, I can assure you. There was an agreement with one Philip Crooks concerning a farm, which he felt compelled to read to me--every word of it! Come along and cut, all of you!" The fourth person, slim, fair-haired, the typical army officer and country house habitué, came over to the table, followed by the lantern-jawed man. Lady Peggy also turned up a card. "You and I, Gilbert," Wilhelmina remarked to the elder man. "Here's luck to us! What on earth is that you are drinking?" "Absinthe," he answered calmly. "I have been trying to persuade Austin to join me, but it seems they don't drink absinthe in the Army." "I should think not, indeed," his hostess answered. "And you my partner, too! Put the stuff away." Gilbert Deyes raised his glass and looked thoughtfully into its opalescent depths. "Ah! my dear lady," he said, "you make a great mistake when you number absinthe amongst the ordinary intoxicating beverages. I tell you that the man who invented it was an epicure in sensations and--er--gastronomy. If only De Quincey had realized the possibility of absinthe, he would have given us jewelled prose indeed." Wilhelmina yawned. "Bother De Quincey!" she declared. "It's your bridge I'm thinking of." "Dear lady, you need have no anxiety," Deyes answered reassuringly. "One does not trifle with one's livelihood. You will find me capable of the most daring finesses, the most wonderful coups. I shall not revoke, I shall not lead out of the wrong hand. My declarations will be touched with genius. The rubber, in fact, is already won. Vive l'absinthe!" "The rubber will never be begun if you go on talking nonsense much longer," Lady Peggy declared, tapping the table impatiently. "I believe I hear the motors outside. We shall have the whole crowd here directly." "They won't find their way here," their hostess assured them calmly. "My deal, I believe." They played the hand in silence. At its conclusion, Wilhelmina leaned back in her chair and listened. "You were right, Peggy," she said, "they are all in the hall. I can hear your brother's voice." Lady Peggy nodded. "Sounds healthy, doesn't it?" Gilbert Deyes leaned across to the side table and helped himself to a cigarette. "Healthy! I call it boisterous," he declared. "Where have they all been?" "Motoring somewhere," Wilhelmina answered. "They none of them have any idea how to pass the time away until the first run."