"This way--come straight down!" Madge called. "The bicycle will be all right there." Rapidly as I knew Jennie's heart to be beating, I was hardly less excited myself. Now what was he going to do? What he did was the simplest thing imaginable. As he advanced among the montbretias and begonias I noticed that he wore his English clothes. He took Madge's hand; he smiled simply at Jennie; and then, as Madge was about to present him to myself, he smiled and shook hands with me too. "That's all right--we do know one another," he said. "Quite a long time. In London, eh, sir? And, as a matter of fact, I came here to see him the other night, but you were all so busy with the party----" Beautifully, calmly disarming. He said it, too, just as Alec came up--for Alec may growl before his guests come, and growl again when they have gone, but he is their host as long as they are there. If Monsieur Arnaud had known Sir George Coverham in London the situation was more or less regularised. The growling might continue, but in a diminuendo. Growling is sometimes a man's duty to his own face. "Well, let's have tea anyway," Alec said. "Tell them, Jennie." The dark blue clothes--that had crossed the Channel in a motor-launch while their owner, thickly greased, had swum alongside in the night--fitted him quite passably well; I remembered the very suit. His boots and collar, however, were French, and apparently he had no English hat, for his head was uncovered. I remember a foolish fleeting wonder that the light chequer of shadow should pattern his clear and self-possessed face exactly as it did our own--and he the _lusus naturæ_ he was! He stood there, modest and at ease, waiting for his seniors to seat themselves. I saw Alec's expert glance at his perfect build. I mentally gave the subject of athletics about ten minutes in which to crop up. "Do sit down," said Madge; and she added to me, "George, you never told me you knew Mr Arnaud in London!" "I think this is the first time we've all been together," I parried. Derry gave me a demure glance. "Oh yes. And I stayed a week-end in Sir George's place not so long ago--had a jolly swim in his pond--isn't that so, sir?" He should at any rate have a tweak in return. "When there's a prep school in the neighbourhood a good many young people use a man's pond," I observed; and at that moment Jennie and a maid arrived with tea.