Scott laughed.  “No, no!  Thanks all the same, I’m better left alone.  Are you coming to the show to-night?  The beautiful Miss de Vigne is going to sing.”

Eustace looked supercilious.  “Is there anything that young lady can’t do, I wonder?  Her accomplishments are legion.  She told me yesterday that she could play the guitar.  She can also recite, play bridge, and take cricket scores.  She is a scratch golf-player, plays a good game of tennis, rides to hounds, and visits the poor.  And that is by no means a complete list.  I don’t wonder that she gives the little brown girl indigestion.  Her perfection is almost nauseating at times.”

Scott laughed again.  It was a relief to have diverted his brother’s attention from more personal subjects.  “She ought to suit you rather well,” he observed.  “You are something of the perfect knight yourself.  I heard a lady exclaim only yesterday when you started off together on that ski-ing expedition, ’What a positively divine couple!  Apollo and Aphrodite!’ I think it was the parson’s wife.  You couldn’t expect her to know much about heathen theology.”

“Don’t make me sick if you don’t mind!” said Sir Eustace.  “Look here, my friend!  We shall be late if we don’t go.  You can’t spend long with Isabel, if you are to turn up in time for this precious concert.  Hullo!  What’s the matter?”

The door of the smoking-room had burst suddenly open, and Colonel de Vigne, very red in the face and as agitated as his pomposity would allow, stood glaring at them.

“So you are here!” he exclaimed, his tone an odd blend of relief and anxiety.

“Do you mean me?” said Sir Eustace, with a touch of haughtiness.

“Yes, sir, you!  I was looking for you,” explained the Colonel, pulling himself together.  “I thought perhaps you might be able to give me some idea as to the whereabouts of my young charge, Miss Bathurst.  She is missing.”

Sir Eustace raised his black brows.  “What should I know about her whereabouts?” he said.

Scott broke in quickly.  “I saw her in the verandah this afternoon with your daughter.”

“I know.  She was there.”  The Colonel spoke with brevity.  “Rose left her there talking to your sister.  No one seems to have seen her since.  I thought she might have been with Sir Eustace.  I see I was mistaken.  I apologize.  But where the devil can she be?”

Sir Eustace raised his shoulders.  “She was certainly not talking to my sister,” he remarked.  “She has kept her room to-day.  Miss Bathurst is probably in her own room dressing for dinner.”

“That’s just where she isn’t!” exploded the Colonel.  “I missed her at tea-time but thought she must be out.  Now her brother tells me that he has been all over the place and can’t find her.  I suppose she can’t be upstairs with your sister?” He turned to Scott.

“I’ll go and see,” Scott said.  “She may be—­though I doubt it.  My sister was not so well, and so stayed in bed to-day.”