Our passage from the terrace across the threshold of the drawing-room cut short a possible rhapsody. Later in the afternoon, in the panelled Elizabethan entrance hall, I came across Lady Auriol in tweed coat and skirt and business-like walking boots, a felt hat on her head and a stout stick in her hands. "Whither away?" I asked. "Colonel Lackaday and I are off for a tramp, over to Glastonbury." Her lips moved ironically. "Like to come?" "God forbid!" I cried. "Thought you wouldn't," she said, drawing on a wash-leather gauntlet, "but when I'm in Society, I do try to be polite." "My teaching and example for the last twenty years," said I, "have not been without effect." "You're a master of deportment, my dear Tony." I was old enough to be her father, but she had always called me Tony, and had no more respect for my grey hairs than her cousin Evadne. "Tell me," she said, with a swift change of manner, "do you know anything about Colonel Lackaday?" "We met here as strangers," said I, "and I can only say that he impresses me as being a very gallant gentleman." Her face beamed. She held out her hand. "I'm so glad you think so." She glanced at the clock. "Good Lord! I'm a minute late. He's outside. I loathe unpunctuality. So long, Tony." She waved a careless farewell and strode out. In the evening she gave Sir Julius to understand that, for aught she cared, he could go into a corner and play Bridge by himself, thus holding herself free, as it appeared to my amused fancy, for any pleasanter eventuality. In a few moments Colonel Lackaday was sitting by her side. I drew a chair to a bridge-table, and idly looked over my hostess's hand. Presently, being dummy, she turned to me, with a little motion of her head towards the pair and whispered: "Those two--Auriol and ---- don't you think it's rather rapid?" "My dear Selina," said I. "What would you have? '_C'est la guerre_.'" Chapter III