“No doubt,” admitted Cecil wearily.  “It’s barely possible that one or two of them are already believing that they will go up.  Do you know, I think I shall establish a record for family promptness, if I may be excused.  Most annoying to be torn away from such a jolly talk, I’m sure.”  And receiving the full and free permission of the company to depart he did so, changing his mind twice about whether to go through the rose arbor or round by the sun-dial.

Johnny swung in by the side of Constance.

“Some one told me you had a message for me,” he blundered.

“Who said so?” she was cruel enough to ask.

Johnny turned pink, but he was brave and replied with the truth.

“Mr. Courtney,” he admitted.

“So I imagined,” she answered icily.  “Mr. Washer and Mr. Close and Colonel Bouncer are to arrive on the noon train.  You’ll excuse me, won’t you, please?” And she hurried on to the house by herself to dress for luncheon.

Johnny Gamble tried to say “Certainly”, but he dropped his sailor straw hat.  Constance heard it and every muscle in her body jumped and stiffened.  Johnny turned to business as a disappointed lover turns to drink.

There seemed a conspicuous dearth of Wobbleses on the east loggia that morning.  Loring, pathetically faithful to his post, entertained them in relays as Johnny brought them up:  sometimes one, sometimes two, and once or twice as many as three of them at one time; but they all lost their feeble mooring and drifted away.

Luncheon-time passed; Washer and Bouncer and Close and Courtney went into executive session; two o’clock came, three o’clock, four o’clock, and still no meeting.  At the latter hour Johnny, making his tireless rounds but afflicted with despair, located Billy Wobbles, the one with the jerky eyelids and impulsive knees, on the loggia with Loring; Eugene was in the poker room trying numbly to discover the difference between a four-flush and a deuce-high hand; Tommy, his toupee well down toward his scanty white eyebrows, was boring the Courtney girls to the verge of tears; Cecil, stumbling almost rhythmically over his own calves, was playing tennis with Winnie and Sammy and Mrs. Follison; and Reggie, the twitcher, was entertaining Val Russel and Bruce Townley with a story he had started at nine o’clock in the morning.

Suddenly Johnny was visited with a long-sought inspiration and hurried down to the kennels, remembering with much self-scorn that he had dragged each of the Wobbleses away from there at least once.

The master of the dogs was Irish and young, with eyes the color of a six-o’clock sky on a sunny day, and he greeted Johnny with a white-toothed smile that would have melted honey.

“I locked Beauty up, sir,” he said with a touch of his cap, referring to the gentle collie that had poked its nose confidingly into Johnny’s hand at every visit.  “There was too much excitement for her with all the strangers round, but she’ll be glad to see you, sir.”