“Something has most certainly got to happen and soon,” I said to Beverly Rodgers.  “Especially if my busy boarding-house bodies are right in saying that the invitations for the wedding are to be out on Monday.”

Well, I had Friday, I had Udolpho; and there, while on that excursion, when I should be alone with John Mayrant during many hours, and especially the hours of deep, confidential night, I swore to myself on oath I would say to the boy the last word, up to the verge of offense, that my wits could devise.  Apart from a certain dramatic excitement as of battle—­battle between Hortense and me—­I truly wished to help him out of the miserable mistake his wrong standard, his chivalry gone perverted, was spurring him on to make; and I had a comic image of myself, summoning Miss Josephine, summoning Miss Eliza, summoning Mrs. Gregory and Mrs. Weguelin, and the whole company of aunts and cousins, and handing to them the rescued John with the single but sufficient syllable:  “There!”

He was in apparent spirits, was John, at that hour of our departure for Udolpho; he pretended so well that I was for a while altogether deceived.  He had wished to call for me with the conveyance in which he should drive us out into the lonely country through the sunny afternoon; but instead, I chose to walk round to where he lived, and where I found him stuffing beneath the seats of the vehicle the baskets and the parcels which contained the provisions for our ample supper.

“I have never seen you drink hearty yet, and now I purpose to,” said John.

As the packing was finishing Miss Josephine St. Michael came by; and the sight of the erect old lady reminded me that of all Kings Port figures known to me and seen in the garden paying their visit of ceremony to Hortense, she alone—­she and Eliza La Heu—­had been absent.  Eliza’s declining to share in that was well-nigh inevitable, but Miss Josephine was another matter.  Perhaps she had considered her sister’s going there to be enough; at any rate, she had not been party to the surrender, and this gave me whimsical satisfaction.  Moreover, it had evidently occasioned no ruffle in the affectionate relations between herself and John.

“John,” said she, “as you drive by, do get me a plumber.”

“Much better get a burglar, Aunt Josephine.  Cheaper in the end, and neater work.”

It was thus, at the outset, that I came to believe John’s spirits were high; and this illusion he successfully kept up until after we had left the plumber and Kings Port several sordid miles behind us; the approach to Kings Port this way lies through dirtiest Africa.  John was loquacious; John discoursed upon the Replacers; Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael had quite evidently expressed to her own circle what she thought of them; and the town in consequence, although it did not see them or their automobiles, because it appeared they were gone some twenty miles inland upon an excursion to a resort where was a large hotel,