“My daughter?  She ’s taking leave of her intended.”

“What’s that?” Fellingham gasped.  “Good heavens, Mr. Smith, what do you mean?”

“Pick up your pipe, my lad.  Girls choose as they please, I suppose”

“Her intended, did you say, sir?  What can that mean?”

“My dear good young fellow, don’t make a fuss.  We’re all going to stay here, and very glad to see you from time to time.  The fact is, I oughtn’t to have quarrelled with Mart Tinman as I’ve done; I’m too peppery by nature.  The fact is, I struck him, and he forgave it.  I could n’t have done that myself.  And I believe I’m in for a headache to-morrow; upon my soul, I do.  Mart Tinman would champagne us; but, poor old boy, I struck him, and I couldn’t make amends—­didn’t see my way; and we joined hands over the glass—­to the deuce with the glass!—­and the end of it is, Netty—­she did n’t propose it, but as I’m in his—­I say, as I had struck him, she—­it was rather solemn, if you had seen us—­she burst into tears, and there was Mrs. Cavely, and old Mart, and me as big a fool—­if I’m not a villain!”

Fellingham perceived a more than common effect of Tin man’s wine.  He touched Van Diemen on the shoulder.  “May I beg to hear exactly what has happened?”

“Upon my soul, we’re all going to live comfortably in Old England, and no more quarreling and decamping,” was the stupid rejoinder.  “Except that I did n’t exactly—­I think you said I exactly’?—­I did n’t bargain for old Mart as my—­but he’s a sound man; Mart’s my junior; he’s rich.  He’s eco . . . he’s eco . . . you know—­my Lord! where’s my brains?—­but he’s upright—­’nomical!”

“An economical man,” said Fellingham, with sedate impatience.

“My dear sir, I’m heartily obliged to you for your assistance,” returned Van Diemen.  “Here she is.”

Annette had come out of the gate in the flint wall.  She started slightly on seeing Herbert, whom she had taken for a coastguard, she said.  He bowed.  He kept his head bent, peering at her intrusively.

“It’s the air on champagne,” Van Diemen said, calling on his lungs to clear themselves and right him.  “I was n’t a bit queer in the house.”

“The air on Tinman’s champagne!” said Fellingham.

“It must be like the contact of two hostile chemical elements.”

Annette walked faster.

They descended from the shingle to the scant-bladed grass-sweep running round the salted town-refuse on toward Elba.  Van Diemen sniffed, ejaculating, “I’ll be best man with Mart Tinman about this business!  You’ll stop with us, Mr.——­what’s your Christian name?  Stop with us as long as you like.  Old friends for me!  The joke of it is that Nelson was my man, and yet I went and enlisted in the cavalry.  If you talk of chemical substances, old Mart Tinman was a sneak who never cared a dump for his country; and I’m not to speak a single sybbarel about that..... over there . . .  Australia . . .  Gippsland!  So down he went, clean over.  Very sorry for what we have done.  Contrite.  Penitent.”