Kew began to see light.  “I’ll rescue you, then,” he replied.  “I’ll think of a way in my bath.”

* * * * *

Next morning a great noise, centring in the bathroom, overflowed through the inn.  It was the noise of Kew singing joyful extracts from Peer Gynt.  Do you remember the beginning of the end of the Hall of the Mountain King?  It goes: 

“Bomp—­chink....  Bomp—­chink....  Tootle—­tootle—­tootle—­tootle—­tootle—­tootle-tee....  Bomp-chink, ...” etc., etc.

The way in which Kew rendered this passage, notoriously a difficult one for a solo voice, would have conveyed to any one who knew him that he had solved both his problems.

Anonyma knocked on the bathroom door, and said, “Cousin Gustus’s headache is still bad.”

Kew therefore broke into Anitra’s Dance, which is more subdued.

Before breakfast he and Mr. Russell and the Hound walked to the downs.  The motor tour seemed to have come to a standstill.  Cousin Gustus’s headache could be felt all over the house.

The moment Mr. Russell and Kew were out of earshot of the inn, Kew made such a violent resolve to speak that he nearly broke a tooth.

“Russ,” he said, “I want to get off my chest for your benefit something that has been worrying me awfully.”

Mr. Russell made no answer.  He had got out of the habit of answering.

“It’s about Jay,” continued Kew.  “I must break to you first that Jay’s ‘house on the sea-front,’ with all its accessories—­gulls, ghosts, turrets, aeroplanes, and Friends—­is one large and elaborate lie.  She and I are very much alike.  The only difference between us used to be her skirt, and now she has gone a good way towards discarding that.  She is nowhere near the sea.  She is in London.  Now you, Russ, are what she and I used to call an ‘Older and Wiser—­’”

Mr. Russell jumped violently, but uttered nothing except a little curse to his dog, which was almost under his feet.

“—­And you are about the only person I could trust, in my absence, to get Jay out of an uncommonly silly position.  I can’t bear her present pose.  It must stop at once, and if I had time I would stop it myself.  I have unfortunately sworn not to give her away to the Family, so I come to you.  She is a ’bus-conductor.”

Mr. Russell refrained from jumping.  I believe he had expected it.  But he said, “It would be too funny.”

Kew looked at him nervously, fearing for a moment lest Mrs. Russell’s sense of humour had proved infectious.

Mr. Russell was thinking how funny it would be if the finger of desirable coincidence had touched his life.  How funny if a nice piece of six-shilling fiction should have taken upon itself to make of him its hero.  Too funny to be true.

But you, I hope, will remember that the coincidence was not so funny as he thought, since Jay had beckoned to it with her eyes open.