"You can expect nothing else," Vera said, coldly. "If you choose to try and run a large house like this with practically no servants beyond a caretaker and his wife, you must put up with the consequences. You are an exceedingly clever man, but you seem to have overlooked one fact, and that is the amount of gossip you are providing for the neighbors. It isn't as if we were still in town, where the man next door knows nothing of you and cares less. Here people are interested in their neighbors. It will cause quite a scandal when it becomes known that you are occupying Lord Merton's house with nothing more than a number of questionable men. As far as I can see, you are far worse off here than if you had stayed in London. I may be wrong, of course." "I begin to think you are quite right," Fenwick grunted. "I must see to this. It will never do for all these chattering magpies to pry into my business. You had better go into Canterbury this morning and see if you can't arrange for a proper staff of servants to come. Well, what's the matter now?" One of the men had come into the room with a telegram in his hand. He pitched it in a contemptuous way upon the table and withdrew, whistling unconcernedly. The man's manner was so flippant and familiar that Vera flushed with annoyance. "I wish you would keep your subordinates a little more under your control," she said. "One hardly expects a man of your wealth to be treated in this way by his clerks." But Fenwick was not listening. His brows were knotted in a sullen frown over the telegram that he held in his hand. He clutched the flimsy paper and threw it with a passionate gesture into the fire. Vera could see that his yellow face had grown strangely white, and that his coarse lips were trembling. He rose from the table, pushing his plate away from him. "I've got to go to town at once," he said. "How strange it is that everything seems to have gone wrong of late! I shall be back again in time for dinner, and I shall be glad if you are good enough to see that I have something fit to eat. Perhaps you had better telephone to town for some servants. It doesn't much matter what you pay them as long as they are good." Fenwick walked rapidly from the room, and a few moments later Vera could see his car moving swiftly down the drive. On the whole, she was not sorry to have Fenwick out of the house. She was pleased, also, to know that he had made up his mind over the servant question. Already the house was beginning to look shabby and neglected; in the strong morning sunshine Vera could see the dust lying everywhere. Her womanly instincts rebelled against this condition of things; she was not satisfied until she had set the telephone in motion and settled the matter as far as the domestic staff was concerned.