“My name is Jeremy, Miss Derrick.”

“Oh, you wrote it?” She turned a little pink.  “Then you must have—­oh, nothing.”

“I couldn’t help it, I’m afraid.”

“Did you know what I was going to say?”

“I guessed.  You were going to say that I must have heard your criticisms in the train.  You were very lenient, I thought.”

“I didn’t like your heroine.”

“No.  What is a ‘creature,’ Miss Derrick?”

“Pamela in your book is a ‘creature,’ " she replied unsatisfactorily.

Shortly after this the game came somehow to an end.  I do not understand the intricacies of croquet.  But Phyllis did something brilliant and remarkable with the balls, and we adjourned for tea.  The sun was setting as I left to return to the farm, with Aunt Elizabeth stored neatly in a basket in my hand.  The air was deliciously cool, and full of that strange quiet which follows soothingly on the skirts of a broiling midsummer afternoon.  Far away, seeming to come from another world, a sheep-bell tinkled, deepening the silence.  Alone in a sky of the palest blue there gleamed a small, bright star.

I addressed this star.

“She was certainly very nice to me.  Very nice indeed.”  The star said nothing.

“On the other hand, I take it that, having had a decent up-bringing, she would have been equally polite to any other man whom she had happened to meet at her father’s house.  Moreover, I don’t feel altogether easy in my mind about that naval chap.  I fear the worst.”

The star winked.

“He calls her Phyllis,” I said.

“Charawk!” chuckled Aunt Elizabeth from her basket, in that beastly cynical, satirical way which has made her so disliked by all right-thinking people.

CHAPTER VIII

A LITTLE DINNER AT UKRIDGE’S

“Edwin comes to-day,” said Mrs. Ukridge.

“And the Derricks,” said Ukridge, sawing at the bread in his energetic way.  “Don’t forget the Derricks, Millie.”

“No, dear.  Mrs. Beale is going to give us a very nice dinner.  We talked it over yesterday.”

“Who is Edwin?” I asked.

We were finishing breakfast on the second morning after my visit to the Derricks.  I had related my adventures to the staff of the farm on my return, laying stress on the merits of our neighbours and their interest in our doings, and the Hired Retainer had been sent off next morning with a note from Mrs. Ukridge inviting them to look over the farm and stay to dinner.

“Edwin?” said Ukridge.  “Oh, beast of a cat.”

“Oh, Stanley!” said Mrs. Ukridge plaintively.  “He’s not.  He’s such a dear, Mr. Garnet.  A beautiful, pure-bred Persian.  He has taken prizes.”

“He’s always taking something.  That’s why he didn’t come down with us.”

“A great, horrid, beast of a dog bit him, Mr. Garnet.  And poor Edwin had to go to a cats’ hospital.”