“Not likely!” the man scoffed.  “They’re comin’ and goin’ all the time from four o’clock in the afternoon till eleven at night.  If I heard a name I shouldn’t remember it.  This way out, gentlemen.”

Wilmore’s hand was in his pocket but the man turned deliberately away.  They walked out into the street.

“For downright incivility,” the former observed, “commend me to the attendants of a young men’s gymnasium!”

Francis smiled.

“All the same, old fellow,” he said, “if you worry for another five minutes about Reggie, you’re an ass.”

At six o’clock that evening Francis turned his two-seater into a winding drive bordered with rhododendrons, and pulled up before the porch of a charming two-storied bungalow, covered with creepers, and with French-windows opening from every room onto the lawns.  A man-servant who had heard the approach of the car was already standing in the porch.  Sir Timothy, in white flannels and a panama hat, strolled across the lawn to greet his approaching guest.

“Excellently timed, my young friend,” he said.  “You will have time for your first cocktail before you change.  My daughter you know, of course.  Lady Cynthia Milton I think you also know.”

Francis shook hands with the two girls who were lying under the cedar tree.  Margaret Hilditch seemed to him more wonderful than ever in her white serge boating clothes.  Lady Cynthia, who had apparently just arrived from some function in town, was still wearing muslin and a large hat.

“I am always afraid that Mr. Ledsam will have forgotten me,” she observed, as she gave him her hand.  “The last time I met you was at the Old Bailey, when you had been cheating the gallows of a very respectable wife murderer.  Poynings, I think his name was.”

“I remember it perfectly,” Francis assented.  “We danced together that night, I remember, at your aunt’s, Mrs. Malcolm’s, and you were intensely curious to know how Poynings had spent his evening.”

“Lady Cynthia’s reminder is perhaps a little unfortunate,” Sir Timothy observed.  “Mr. Ledsam is no longer the last hope of the enterprising criminal.  He has turned over a new leaf.  To secure the services of his silver tongue, you have to lay at his feet no longer the bags of gold from your ill-gotten gains but the white flower of the blameless life.”

“This is all in the worst possible taste,” Margaret Hilditch declared, in her cold, expressionless tone.  “You might consider my feelings.”

Lady Cynthia only laughed.

“My dear Margaret,” she said, “if I thought that you had any, I should never believe that you were your father’s daughter.  Here’s to them, anyway,” she added, accepting the cocktail from the tray which the butler had just brought out.  “Mr. Ledsam, are you going to attach yourself to me, or has Margaret annexed you?”

“I have offered myself to Mrs. Hilditch,” Francis rejoined promptly, “but so far I have made no impression.”