And that evening Val Stafford came to pay his respects to his old comrade in arms.  Lawrence had travelled so much that it never took him long to settle down.  Even at Wanhope he managed within a few hours to make himself at home.  A trap sent over to Countisford brought back his manservant and an effeminate quantity of luggage, and by teatime his room was strewn from end to end with a litter of expensive trifles more proper to a pretty woman than to a man.  Mrs. Clowes, slipping in to cast a housewifely glance to his comfort, held up her hands in mock dismay.  “You must give yourself plenty of time to dust all this tomorrow morning, Caroline,” she said to the house-maid.  She laughed at the gold brushes and gold manicure set, the polished array of boots, the fine silk and linen laid out on his bed, the perfume of sandalwood and Russian leather and eau de cologne.  “And I hope you will be able to make Captain Hyde’s valet comfortable.  Did he say whether he liked his room?”

“I reelly don’t know, ma’am,” replied the truthful Caroline.  “You see he’s a foreigner, and most of what he says, well, it reelly sounds like swearing.

“Madame.”  It was Gaston himself, appearing from nowhere at Laura’s elbow, and saluting her with an empressement that was due, if Laura had only known it, to the harmony of her flounces.  Laura eyed the little Gaston kindly.  “You are of the South, are you not?” she said in her soft French, the French of a Frenchwoman but for a slight stiffness of disuse:  “and are you comfortable here, Gaston?  You must tell me if there is anything you want.”

Gaston was grateful less for her solicitude than for the sound of his own language.  When she had left the room he caught up a photograph, thrust it back into his master’s dressingcase, and spat through the open window—­“C’est fini avec toi, vieille biche,” said he:  “allons donc! j’aime mieux celle-ci par exemple.”

But, though Laura laughed, it was with indulgence.  While Isabel and Lawrence were conversing among the juniper bushes, the Bendishes had given Mrs. Clowes a sketch of Hyde which had confirmed her own impressions.  Although he liked good food and wine and cigars, he liked sport and travel too, and music and painting and books.  His eighty-guinea breechloaders were dearer to him than the lady of the ivory frame.  Who was the lady of the ivory frame?  Gaston would have been happy to define with the leer of the boulevards the relations between his master and Philippa Cleve.  Gaston had no doubt of them, nor had Frederick Cleve; Philippa had high hopes; Lawrence alone hung fire.  If he continued to meet her and she to offer him lavish opportunities the situation might develop, for Lawrence was not sufficiently in earnest in any direction to play what has been called the ill-favoured part of a Joseph, but in his heart of hearts, this Joseph wished Potiphar would keep his wife in order.  And, strange to say, Yvonne was not far wide of the mark.  She believed that Joseph was a sinner but not a willing one:  and Jack Bendish, a little astray among these feminine subtleties, assented after his fashion—­“Hyde’s rather an ass in some ways,” he said simply, “but he’s an all-round sportsman.”