"Oh, well, you know what an impulsive creature he is," Travers apologized. "Besides, I believe he means to drop in later on. Please don't punish me, Mrs. Cary, for his delinquencies." The suggestion that Stafford might resume his interrupted visit later mollified Mrs. Cary at once. "No, you shan't suffer," she assured him, with fat motherliness. "I will go and tell the servants about tea at once." The minute she was out of the room Travers came over to Beatrice's side. A slight change had taken place in his expression. It reminded her involuntarily of that night in the dog-cart when for an instant his passions had forced him to drop the mask. "You and I have every reason to congratulate each other," he said, in a low voice. "We can now go ahead and win. The road is clear for us both." "What do you mean--what have you done?" "Nothing," he answered, as Mrs. Cary reentered. "You will know in a day or two. And then--well, the game will be in our hands, Miss Cary." Mrs. Cary, who had caught the last remark, looked quickly and suspiciously from one to the other. "What's that you are talking about?" she demanded. "What game is in your hands, Beaty?" Travers smiled frankly. "Miss Cary and I are working out a bridge problem," he explained. "We have just discovered a solution to a difficulty. That's all." His smile deepened as he glanced across at Beatrice, but there was no response on her grave face. She half turned away from him, and for the first time he thought that the climate was telling on her. She looked white and harassed. CHAPTER XIV IN WHICH MANY THINGS ARE BROKEN "I can't think what is making Captain Stafford so late," Lois said to Mrs. Carmichael, who was, as usual, knitting at some unrecognizable garment destined for a far-off London slum. "I wonder if he has forgotten that to-day is the tournament, and that he promised to fetch me." "I hardly think he has forgotten the tournament," Travers remarked carelessly. "He was speaking about it to Miss Cary this morning. I expect he will be around soon--and if he fails, will I do instead?" He looked at her with such a pleasant frankness in his eyes that any awkwardness she might have felt became impossible, and she could only smile back at him, grateful for the unchanged friendship which he had retained for her. "Of course you will do!" she said gaily. "But I must give him a few minutes' grace. It has only just struck four o'clock." The Colonel looked around. He had come in five minutes before, hot and tired from a long ride of inspection, and his family, knowing his small peculiarities, had allowed him to get over his first exhaustion undisturbed. "I shouldn't wait too long, little girl," he said, smiling kindly. "I fancy Stafford is not at all up to the mark. I told him to take a day off if he wanted it." "Why, when did you see him?" his wife asked. "This morning, of course, at parade. He struck me then as being rather peculiar."