“You can trust me, ma’am, I hope?” blurted ’Bias.

“I can trust both of you, I hope.”  Mrs Bosenna glanced towards Cai, or so Cai thought.

“The jokes they keep makin’!” Palmerston reported to Mrs Bowldler.  (With the utmost cheerfulness he continued running to and fro between summer-house and residence under the downpour.) “When Mrs Bosenna said that about a merrythought I almost split myself.”

“There’s a medium in all things,” Mrs Bowldler advised him.  “Stand-offish should be your expression when waiting at table; like as if you’d heard it all before several times, no matter how funny they talk.  As for splitting, I shiver at the bare thought.”

“Well, I didn’t do it, really.  I just got my hand over my mouth in time.”

“And what did that other woman happen to be doing?” asked Mrs Bowldler.

“I partic’l’ly noticed,” said Palmerston.  “She was sittin’ quiet and toyin’ with her ’am.”

The rain continuing, ’Bias at the close of supper sensationally produced two packs of cards and proposed that, as soon as Palmerston had removed the cloth, they should play what he called “a rubber to whist.”  He and Mrs Bosenna cut together; Cai with Dinah.  Now the two captains could, as a rule, play a good hand at whist.  On this occasion they played so abominably as to surprise themselves and each other.  Dinah did not profess to be an expert, and Cai’s blunders were mostly lost on her.  But ’Bias disgraced himself before his partner, who neither reproached him nor once missed a trick.

“I can’t tell what’s come over me to-night,” he confessed at the end of the second rubber.

“Regatta-day!” laughed Mrs Bosenna, and pushed the cards away.  The wedding-ring on her third finger glanced under the light of the hanging lamp.  “Dinah shall tell our fortunes,” she suggested.

Dinah took the pack and proceeded very gravely to tell their fortunes.  She began with Captain Hunken, and found that, a dark lady happening in the “second house,” he would certainly marry one of that hue, with plenty of money, and live happy ever after.

She next attempted Captain Hocken’s.  “Well, that’s funny, now!” she exclaimed, after dealing out the cards face uppermost.

“What’s funny?” asked Cai.

“Why,” said Dinah, after a long scrutiny, during which she pursed and unpursed her lips half a dozen times at least, “the cards are different, o’ course, but they say the same thing—­dark lady and all—­and I can’t make it other.”

“No need,” said Cai cheerfully, drawing at his pipe (for Mrs Bosenna had given the pair permission to smoke).  “So long as you let ’Bias and me run on the same lines, I’m satisfied.  Eh, ’Bias?”

“But ’tis the same lady!”

“Oh!  That would alter matters, nat’ch’rally.”

Dinah swept the cards together again and shuffled them.  “Shall I tell your fortune, mistress?” she asked mischievously.