And if you cannot penetrate the strongholds of Devon county, it is not difficult to make acquaintance with her visitors, especially if your visiting card is a gilt edge security for future excursions and diversions done in top-hole style.

Unsuspecting Leonie, who never kept a grudge, after a week or so of astonishment and aversion, thinking in her innocence of heart that she perceived the trend of events, made up her mind to meet the rotund old knight with the simple graciousness due to her aunt’s would-be husband.

True, the elasticity of her graciousness did not stretch enough to allow her to accept the never-ending invitations which poured into the cottage; but she would tuck her remonstrating aunt into the car which was ever at the gate, and smile delightfully upon the infatuated old fellow who put her aloofness down to mere girlish waywardness.

Although the corporeal part of the old vulgarian grated on her susceptibilities, she was quite willing to believe that if one chose to dig deep enough it would prove to be only the rough earth covering a positive mine of rare temperamental gems; and in her blindness whistled cheerily as she thought of the joy her aunt would feel at not having to drop her title when she changed her name, and at being able to retain the same initials for her monogram.

CHAPTER XV

  “To sell a bargain well is as cunning
  as fast and loose.”—­Shakespeare.

“Now I want you to listen to me, Leonie!”

“I am, Auntie!”

“I mean seriously!  I want to talk about myself for one thing, and our very straitened means, which do not permit us to go on living even like this; and oh! lots of other things.”

“Right, darling!” said her niece, moving across the room to sit on a broad stool at her relation’s feet, but twisting her head to one side with a quick movement when her aunt laid her hand dramatically upon the tawny hair.

“Please, Auntie, don’t!  I can’t bear to have my head touched!”

“Just what I want to talk about!” vaguely said Susan Hetth as she tried to disentangle an old-fashioned ring which had unfortunately caught a few shining hairs in its loose setting.

“Please don’t touch my head, Auntie!” repeated Leonie as she sat back.  “Let my hair go, please!”

“I’m not touching your hair, child,” impatiently replied the elder woman.  “It’s got caught in one of my rings!”

Leonie’s eyes were almost closed in a strange kind of psychological agony; then just as though she acted unconsciously she seized her aunt’s hands and pulled them quickly from her head, tearing out the hair entangled in the ring by the roots.

“I can’t stand it, Auntie.  I have never been able to bear anyone touching my head,” she said very quietly.

“I think you’re insane at times, Leonie, really I do!”