“Aren’t you?  Then don’t let that big black dog there chase the little one.”

He pointed with his finger and from behind the old yew arbour came the shrill clamour of a little dog in agony.  It brought Barbara flying out of the house.  Liosha followed leisurely.  The yelping ceased.  Mr. Ras Fendihook went to meet his hostess.  Doria, Jaffery and I looked at one another in mutual and dismayed comprehension.

“Old pal,” quoted Doria.

I glanced apprehensively across the strip of lawn.  “I hope, for his sake, he’s not calling Barbara ‘old girl.’”

“He calls everybody funny names,” Susan chimed in.  “See what a lot he called me.”

“Does your Royal Fairy Highness approve of him?” asked Jaffery.

“I should think so, Uncle Jaff,” she replied fervently.  “He’s—­he’s marvelious!”

“He is,” said Jaffery, “and even that jewel of language doesn’t express him.”

“My dear,” said I, “you stick close to him all day, as long as mummy will let you.”

I have never got the credit I deserved for the serene wisdom of that suggestion.  All through lunch, all through the long afternoon until it was Susan’s bedtime, her obedience to my command saved over and over again a tense situation.  To the guest in her house Barbara was the perfection of courtesy.  But beneath the mask of convention raged fury with Liosha.  A woman can seldom take a queer social animal for what he is and suck the honey from his flowers of unconventionality.  She had never heard a man say “Right oh!” to a butler when offered a second helping of pudding.  She had never dreamed of the possibility of a strange table-neighbour laying his hand on hers and requesting her to “take it from me, my dear.”  It sent awful shivers down her spine to hear my august self alluded to as her “old man.”  She looked down her nose when, to the apoplectic joy of Susan (supposed to be on her primmest behaviour at meals), he, with a significant wink, threw a new potato into the air, caught it on his fork and conveyed it to his mouth.  Her smile was that of the polite hostess and not of the enthusiastic listener when he told her of triumphs in Manchester and Cincinnati.  To her confusion, he presupposed her intimate acquaintance with the personalities of the World of Variety.

“That’s where I came across little Evie Bostock,” he said confidentially.  “A clipper, wasn’t she?  Just before she ran off with that contortionist—­you know who I mean—­handsome chap—­what’s his name?—­oh, of course you know him.”

My poor Barbara!  Daughter of a distinguished Civil servant, a K.C.B., assumed to be on friendly terms with a Boneless Wonder!

“But indeed I don’t, Mr. Fendihook,” she replied pathetically.

“Yes, yes, you must.”  He snapped his fingers.  “Got it.  Romeo!  You must have heard of Romeo.”