“Oh, but he’s Mr. Roxbury Medcroft, the great English architect,” cried Mrs. Rodney, in some little confusion.  Odell-Carney suddenly remembered.  He glared hard at Brock; the Rodneys saw signs of disaster.

“Oh, by Jove, are you the fellow who put those new windows in the Chaucer Memorial Hall?  ’Pon me soul!  Are you the man who did that?” There was no mistaking his manner; he was distinctly annoyed.

Brock faced the storm coolly, for his friend Medcroft’s sake.  “I am Roxbury Medcroft, if that’s what you mean, Mr. Odell-Carney.”

“I know you’re Medcroft, but, hang it all, wot I asked was, did you design those windows?  ’Gad, sir, they’re the laughing sensation of the age.  Where the devil did you get such ideas—­eh, wot?” His wife had calmly, diplomatically intervened.

“I hate that man,” said Mrs. Medcroft to her supposed husband a few minutes later.  There was a dangerous red in her cheeks, and she was breathing quickly.  Brock gave an embarrassed laugh and mentioned something audibly about a “stupid ass.”

The entire party left on the following day for Innsbruck, where Mr. Rodney already had reserved the better part of a whole floor for himself and guests.  Mr. Odell-Carney, before they left Munich, brought himself to the point of apologising to Brock for his peppery remarks.  He was sorry and all that, and he hoped they’d be friends; but the windows were atrocious, there was no getting around that.  His wife smoothed it over with Edith by confiding to her the lamentable truth that poor Odell-Carney hadn’t the remotest idea what he was talking about half of the time.  After carefully looking Edith over and finding her valuably bright and attractive, she cordially expressed the hope that she would come to see her in London.

“We must know each other better, my dear Mrs. Medcroft,” she had said amiably.  Edith thought of the famous drawing-rooms in Mayfair and exulted vastly.  “And Mr. Medcroft, too.  I am so interested in men who have a craft.  They always are worth while, really, don’t you know.  How like an American Mr. Medcroft is.  I daresay he gets that from having lived so long with an American wife.  And what a darling baby!  She’s wonderfully like Mr. Medcroft, don’t you think?  No one could mistake that child’s father—­never!  And, my dear,” leaning close with a whimsical air of confidence, “that’s more than can be said of certain children I know of in very good families.”

Edith may have gasped and looked wildly about in quest of help, but her agitation went unnoticed by the new friend.  From that momentous hour Mrs. Medcroft encouraged an inordinate regard for the circumspect.  She decided that it was best never to be alone with her husband; the future was now too precious to go unguarded for a single moment that might be unexplainable when the triumphal hour of revelation came to hand.  She impressed this fact upon her sister, with the result that while Brock was never alone with his prudent wife, he was seldom far from the side of the adorable lieutenant.  As if precociously providing for an ultimate alibi, the fickle Tootles began to show unmistakable signs of aversion for her temporary parent.  Mrs. Rodney, being an old-fashioned mother, could not reconcile herself to this unfilial attitude, and gravely confided to her husband that she feared Medcroft was mistreating his child behind their backs.