“Well, how’s everybody?”

Ayre waited for a more definite question.

“Seen the Territons lately?”

“Not very.  Haven’t you?”

“No.  They weren’t over there, you know.  Are they alive?”

“My young friend, are you trying to deceive me?  You have heard from at least one of them, if you haven’t seen them?”

“I haven’t—­not a line.  We don’t correspond:  not comme il faut.”

“Oh, you haven’t written to Claudia?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I?”

“Let us go back to the previous question.  Have you heard from Miss Bernard?”

“Why probe my wounds?  Not a single line.”

“Confound her impudence! she never wrote?”

“I don’t know why she should.  But in case she ought, I’m bound to say she couldn’t.”

“Why not?  She said she would; she said so to me.”

“She couldn’t have said so.  You must have misunderstood her.  I left no address, you know; and I had no difficulty in eluding interviewers—­not being a prize-fighter or a minor poet.”

Sir Roderick smiled.

“Gad!  I never thought of that.  She held me, after all.”

“What on earth are you driving at?”

“If there’s one thing I hate more than another, it’s a narrative; but I see I’m in for it.  Sit still and hold your tongue till I’m through with it.”

Eugene obeyed implicitly; and Ayre, not without honest pride, recounted his Baden triumph.

“And unless she’s bolder than I think, you’ll find a letter to that effect.”

Eugene sat very quiet.

“Well, you don’t seem overpleased, after all.  Wasn’t I right?”

“Quite right, old fellow.  But, I say, is she in love with Haddington?”

“Ah, there’s your beastly vanity?  I think she is rather, you know, or she’d never have given herself away so.”

“Rum taste!” said Eugene, whose relief at his freedom was tempered by annoyance at Kate’s insensibility.  “But I’m awfully obliged.  And, by Jove, Ayre, it’s new life to me!”

“I thought so.”

Eugene had got over his annoyance.  A sudden thought seemed to strike him.

“I say, does Claudia know?”

“Rickmansworth’s sure to have told her on the spot.  She must have known it a month; and what’s more, she must think you’ve known it a month.”

“Inference that the sooner I show up the better.”

“Exactly.  What, are you off now?  Do you know where she is?”

“I shall send a wire to Territon Park.  Rick’s sure to be there if she isn’t, and I’ll go down and find out about it.”

“Wait a minute, will you?  Have you heard from your friend Stafford lately?”

A shadow fell on Eugene’s face.

“No.  But that’s over.  Must be, or he’d never have bolted from Millstead.”

Ayre was silent a moment.  Morewood’s letter told him that Stafford had set out to go to Claudia.  What if he and Eugene met?  Ayre had not much faith in the power of friendship under such circumstances.