Maud could not understand it.  That is to say, she resolutely kept herself from accepting the only explanation of the episode that seemed possible.  In black and white she had asked George to go to London and see Geoffrey and arrange for the passage—­through himself as a sort of clearing-house—­of letters between Geoffrey and herself.  She had felt from the first that such a request should be made by her in person and not through the medium of writing, but surely it was incredible that a man like George, who had been through so much for her and whose only reason for being in the neighbourhood was to help her, could have coldly refused without even a word.  And yet what else was she to think?  Now, more than ever, she felt alone in a hostile world.

Yet, to her guests she was bright and entertaining.  Not one of them had a suspicion that her life was not one of pure sunshine.

Albert, I am happy to say, was thoroughly miserable.  The little brute was suffering torments.  He was showering anonymous Advice to the Lovelorn on Reggie Byng—­excellent stuff, culled from the pages of weekly papers, of which there was a pile in the housekeeper’s room, the property of a sentimental lady’s maid—­and nothing seemed to come of it.  Every day, sometimes twice and thrice a day, he would leave on Reggie’s dressing-table significant notes similar in tone to the one which he had placed there on the night of the ball; but, for all the effect they appeared to exercise on their recipient, they might have been blank pages.

The choicest quotations from the works of such established writers as “Aunt Charlotte” of Forget-Me-Not and “Doctor Cupid”, the heart-expert of Home Chat, expended themselves fruitlessly on Reggie.  As far as Albert could ascertain—­and he was one of those boys who ascertain practically everything within a radius of miles—­Reggie positively avoided Maud’s society.

And this after reading “Doctor Cupid’s” invaluable tip about “Seeking her company on all occasions” and the dictum of “Aunt Charlotte” to the effect that “Many a wooer has won his lady by being persistent”—­Albert spelled it “persistuent” but the effect is the same—­“and rendering himself indispensable by constant little attentions”.  So far from rendering himself indispensable to Maud by constant little attentions, Reggie, to the disgust of his backer and supporter, seemed to spend most of his time with Alice Faraday.  On three separate occasions had Albert been revolted by the sight of his protege in close association with the Faraday girl—­once in a boat on the lake and twice in his grey car.  It was enough to break a boy’s heart; and it completely spoiled Albert’s appetite—­a phenomenon attributed, I am glad to say, in the Servants’ Hall to reaction from recent excesses.  The moment when Keggs, the butler, called him a greedy little pig and hoped it would be a lesson to him not to stuff himself at all hours with stolen cakes was a bitter moment for Albert.