Jimmy's two-seater was suffering from one of its usual breakdowns. That red-haired young man, instructing his porter to put his bag into a first-class smoker, had no idea of the coil woven about his destiny. Ronnie he had not seen for some weeks; Julia's letter to his firm requesting that "Mr. Wilberforce, Jr., should, if possible, come down and see me" conveyed an invitation to stay the Friday night, but no hint of Mollie's presence at Daffadillies.

Nevertheless, as he watched Victoria Station slide past the lowered windows, the solicitor's thoughts visualized a girl whose letters from Clyst Fullerford showed all too plainly that she meant to insist, despite her love for him, on Aliette's divorce preceding her own marriage. Jimmy had written that girl only a week since, begging her--"for the absolutely last time of asking"--to be reasonable. But the veiled threat brought only the inevitable reply, "You mustn't ask me that. It wouldn't be fair to Alie."

He had apologized for his veiled threat; but the reply to it still rankled. "Really," thought the junior partner in Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright, "it's getting a bit too thick. I've told her over and over again that I don't care what her sister does. As far as I am concerned, she can go on living with Cavendish till the cows come home. But when it comes to that dear little idiot insisting that I should arrange my prospective sister-in-law's divorce before my own marriage--well, it's enough to try the temper of the lord chief!"

Though temperamentally incapable of a grand passion, the solicitor had long ceased to regard matrimony, in his own particular and individual case, as an unsentimental contract. He wanted the girl; and "Dash it all," he decided, "this thing's got to stop. If necessary, I'll have to run down to Devonshire. I can't wait much longer. She's asking too much of a chap. I can't settle this affair of her sister's. Nobody can settle it except H. B. And H. B.'s as obstinate as a mule. Bit of a cad is H. B. Clever devil, though; I wish I had his income."

Ruminating thus, James Wilberforce made Horsham Junction; changed trains; and arrived, still ruminating, at West Water.

"Here, you," he called to the solitary porter, "is there a conveyance of any sort from Daffadillies?"

"Yes, sir. There's a motor; and two ladies, sir."

For a moment, Jimmy's eyes refused to recognize the two lone figures by the ticket-collector's gate of the little wayside platform: Aliette in a dove-gray coat and skirt, floppy straw shading her eyes; and Mollie, hatless, gloveless, almost too obviously unperturbed at his approach. Then, conquering surprise, he took off his hat; shook hands; and was whisked into the tonneau of a dusty car before he could collect his wits.

"Astonished, Jimmy?" smiled the girl, still outwardly unperturbed, as Aliette, hardly restraining a sly chuckle of amusement, climbed up beside the driver.

"I certainly didn't expect----"

"To find me here." Imperturbability gave place to diffidence. "I didn't know you were coming down till an hour ago. Perhaps, if I had known, I shouldn't have come."

"That's a jolly remark to one's fiancÉ."

"I'm not your fiancÉe."

They were within two miles of Daffadillies before Jimmy ventured his next remark. "Then you haven't changed your mind, dear?"

"Certainly not. And, Jimmy--please behave yourself."

The man--his slight caress eluded--fell into a sulky silence. "Devilish awkward position," he decided--thought of his father's baronetcy, and of the social responsibilities entailed on a family solicitor, weighing heavily on his Philistine mind--"women are the devil!" He felt that he had been trapped; first, into foregathering with Aliette, a situation he had done his best to avoid since the scandal; secondly, into a scene with Mollie; and thirdly, into yet another discussion with that very resolute old lady, Julia Cavendish, about her son's matrimonial troubles.

Nevertheless, the drive soothed him; and by the time they made the stone lodge and the eagle-crowned pillars of the great house, the prospect--scene or no scene--of twenty-four hours in Mollie's company outweighed all other considerations. Moreover, it seemed impossible to associate the foursquare magnificence and tree-girt terraces of Daffadillies with any form of scandal!

"And how is Mrs. Cavendish?" he remembered to ask Aliette, as they alighted. "Bucking up, one hears."

"She's ever so much better. She's in the garden to-day."