“I’ll do so gladly,” said Lady Kynnersley, with surprising meekness.  “But you will bring him back, Simon?  I’ve arranged for him to marry Maisie.  I can’t have my plans for the future upset.”

By-law 379!  Dear, excellent, but wooden-headed woman!

“I have your promise, haven’t I?” she said, her hand in mine.

“You have,” said I nobly.

But how in the name of Astaroth I’m going to keep it I haven’t the remotest conception.

CHAPTER III

Some letters in Dale’s round handwriting lay on the library table awaiting my signature.  Dale himself had gone.  A lady had called for him, said Rogers, in an electric brougham.  As my chambers are on the second floor and the staircase half-way down the arcade, Rogers’s detailed information surprised me.  I asked him how he knew.

“A chauffeur in livery, sir, came to the door and said that the brougham was waiting for Mr. Kynnersley.”

“I don’t see how the lady came in,” I remarked.

“She didn’t, sir.  She remained in the brougham,” said Rogers.

So Lola Brandt keeps an electric brougham.

I lunched at the club, and turned up the article “Lola Brandt” in the living encyclopaedia—­that was my friend Renniker.  The wonderful man gave me her history from the cradle to Cadogan Gardens, where she now resides.  I must say that his details were rather vague.  She rode in a circus or had a talking horse—­he was not quite sure; and concerning her conjugal or extra-conjugal heart affairs he admitted that his information was either unauthenticated or conjectural.  At any rate, she had not a shred of reputation.  And she didn’t want it, said Renniker; it would be as much use to her as a diving suit.

“She has young Dale Kynnersley in tow,” he remarked.

“So I gather,” said I.  “And now can you tell me something else?  What is the present state of political parties in Guatemala?”

I was not in the least interested in Guatemala; but I did not care to discuss Dale with Renniker.  When he had completed his sketch of affairs in that obscure republic, I thanked him politely and ordered coffee.

Feeling in a gregarious, companionable humour—­I have had enough solitude at Murglebed to last me the rest of my short lifetime—­I went later in the afternoon to Sussex Gardens to call on Mrs. Ellerton.  It was her day at home, and the drawing-room was filled with chattering people.  I stayed until most of them were gone, and then Maisie dragged me to the inner room, where a table was strewn with the wreckage of tea.

“I haven’t had any,” she said, grasping the teapot and pouring a treacly liquid into a cup.  “You must have some more.  Do you like it black, or with milk?”

She is a dainty slip of a girl, with deep grey eyes and wavy brown hair and a sea-shell complexion.  I absently swallowed the abomination she handed me, for I was looking at her over the teacup and wondering how an exquisite-minded gentleman like Dale could forsake her for a Lola Brandt.  It was not as if Maisie were an empty-headed, empty-natured little girl.  She is a young person of sense, education, and character.  She also adores musical comedy and a band at dinner:  an excellent thing in woman—­when she is very young.