His hearers could not help being surprised by this prediction.  Helen leaned over the side and looked ahead.

“You are wrong this time, Mr. Brett,” she laughed merrily.  “The only vehicle between us and a turn in the road is a dog-cart coming this way.”

“That merely shows the necessity of carefully choosing one’s words.  I should have said ‘overtake,’ not ‘meet.’”

The carriage sped swiftly along.  Helen craned her head to catch the first glimpse of the yet hidden stretch of road beyond the turning.

“Good gracious!” she cried suddenly.

Even Margaret was stimulated to curiosity.  She bent over the opposite side.

“What an extraordinary thing!” she exclaimed.

Brett sat unmoved, anything in front being, of course, quite invisible to him.  On the box the coachman nudged the footman, as if to say: 

“Did you ever!  Well, s’elp me!”

For, in the next few strides, the horses had to be pulled to one side to avoid a cart laden with potatoes, driven by a coatless youth who had one arm thrown gracefully around the waist of a girl in a huge bonnet.

Nellie turned and stared at them in most unladylike manner, much to their discomfiture.

“I do declare,” she cried, “the girl has brown eyes!  Mr. Brett, do tell us how you did it.”

“I will,” he replied gaily.  “Those labourers in a field half a mile away were digging potatoes.  Among the women sorters was a girl who was gazing anxiously in this direction, and who resumed work in a very bad temper when another woman spoke to her in a chaffing way.  The gate was left open, and there were fresh wheel-tracks in this direction.  The men were all coatless, so I argued a young man driving and a girl by his side, hence the annoyance of the watcher in the field, owing particularly to the position of his arm.  The presence on the road of several potatoes, with the earth still damp on them, added certainty to my convictions.  It is very easy, you see.”

“Yes, but how about the colour of the girl’s eyes?”

“That was hazardous, to an extent.  But five out of every six women in this county have brown eyes.”

“Well, you may think it easy; to me it is marvellous.”

“It is positively startling,” said Margaret seriously; and if the barrister indulged in a fresh series of deductions he remained silent on the topic.

He tried to lead the conversation to Naples, but was foiled by Mrs. Capella’s positive disinclination to discuss Italy on any pretext, and Miss Layton’s natural desire not to embarrass her friend.

Indeed, so little headway did he make, so fully was Margaret’s mind taken up with the new departure he had suggested, that when the carriage stopped at the rectory to drop Helen—­who wished to tell her father about the dinner and to change her costume—­he was strongly tempted to wriggle out of the engagement.

Inclination pulled him to his quiet sitting-room in the County Hotel; impulse bade him remain and make the most of the meagre opportunities offered by the drift of conversation.