"No. And what's more, I don't intend to eat it. But you may as well tell me how these gypsies cook it," and Freddy listened with both his red ears to the description, on hearing which he decided that his wife might instruct the cook how to prepare the animal. "But no one will eat it but me."

Lady Garvington shuddered. "I shan't touch it myself. Those horrid snails you insisted on being cooked a week ago made me quite ill. You are always trying new experiments, Freddy."

"Because I get so tired of every-day dishes," growled Lord Garvington.

"These cooks have no invention. I wish I'd lived in Rome when they had those banquets you read of in Gibbon."

"Did he write a book on cookery?" asked Lady Garvington very naturally.

"No. He turned out a lot of dull stuff about wars and migrations of tribes: you are silly, Jane."

"What's that about migration of tribes?" asked Mrs. Belgrove, who was in a good humor, as she had won largely at bridge. "You don't mean those dear gypsies at Abbot's Wood do you, Lord Garvington? I met one of them the other day--quite a girl and very pretty in a dark way. She told my fortune, and said that I would come in for a lot of money. I'm sure I hope so," sighed Mrs. Belgrove. "Celestine is so expensive, but no one can fit me like she can. And she knows it, and takes advantage, the horrid creature."

"I wish the tribe of gypsies would clear out," snapped Freddy, standing before the fire and glaring at the company generally. "I know they'll break in here and rob."

"Well," drawled Silver, who was hovering near, dressed so carefully that he looked more of a foxy, neat bounder than ever. "I have noticed that some of the brutes have been sneaking round the place."

Mrs. Belgrove shrieked. "Oh, how lucky I occupy a bedroom on the third floor. Just like a little bird in its tiny-weeny nest. They can't get at me there, can they, Lord Garvington?"

"They don't want you," observed Miss Greeby in her deep voice. "It's your diamonds they'd like to get."

"Oh!" Mrs. Belgrove shrieked again. "Lock my diamonds up in your strong room, Lord Garvington. Do! do! do! To please poor little me," and she effusively clasped her lean hands, upon which many of the said diamonds glittered.

"I don't think there is likely to be any trouble with these poor gypsies, Mrs. Belgrove," remarked Lady Agnes negligently. "Hubert has told me a great deal about them, and they are really not so bad as people make out."

"Your husband can't know anything of such ragtags," said Miss Greeby, looking at the beautiful, pale face, and wondering if she really had any suspicion that Pine was one of the crew she mentioned.

"Oh, but Hubert does," answered Lady Agnes innocently. "He has met many of them when he has been out helping people. You have no idea, any of you, how good Hubert is," she added, addressing the company generally.

"He walks on the Embankment sometimes on winter nights and gives the poor creatures money. And in the country I have often seen him stop to hand a shilling to some tramp in the lanes."

"A gypsy for choice," growled Miss Greeby, marvelling that Lady Agnes could not see the resemblance between the tramps' faces and that of her own husband. "However, I hope Pine's darlings won't come here to rob.

I'll fight for my jewels, I can promise you."

One of the men laughed. "I shouldn't like to get a blow from your fist."

Miss Greeby smiled grimly, and looked at his puny stature. "Women have to protect themselves from men like you," she said, amidst great laughter, for the physical difference between her and the man was quite amusing.

"It's all very well talking," said Garvington crossly. "But I don't trust these gypsies."

"Why don't you clear them off your land then?" asked Silver daringly.

Garvington glared until his gooseberry eyes nearly fell out of his red face. "I'll clear everyone to bed, that's what I'll do," he retorted, crossing the room to the middle French window of the drawing-room. "I wish you fellows would stop your larking out there," he cried. "It's close upon midnight, and all decent people should be in bed."

"Since when have you joined the Methodists, Garvington?" asked an officer who had come over from some twelve-mile distant barracks to pa.s.s the night, and a girl behind him began to sing a hymn.

Lady Agnes frowned. "I wish you wouldn't do that, Miss Ardale," she said in sharp rebuke, and the girl had the sense to be silent, while Garvington fussed over the closing of the window shutters.

"Going to stand a siege?" asked Miss Greeby, laughing. "Or do you expect burglars, particularly on this night."

"I don't expect them at all," retorted the little man. "But I tell you I hate the idea of these lawless gypsies about the place. Still, if anyone comes," he added grimly, "I shall shoot."

"Then the attacking person or party needn't bother," cried the officer.

"I shouldn't mind standing up to your fire, myself, Garvington."

With laughter and chatter and much merriment at the host's expense, the guests went their several ways, the women to chat in one another's dressing-rooms and the men to have a final smoke and a final drink.

Garvington, with two footmen, and his butler, went round the house, carefully closing all the shutters, and seeing that all was safe. His sister rather marvelled at this excessive precaution, and said as much to her hostess.

"It wouldn't matter if the gypsies did break in," she said when alone with Lady Garvington in her own bedroom. "It would be some excitement, for all these people must find it very dull here."

"I'm sure I do my best, Agnes," said the sister-in-law plaintively.

"Of course, you do, you poor dear," said the other, kissing her. "But Garvington always asks people here who haven't two ideas. A horrid, rowdy lot they are. I wonder you stand it."

"Garvington asks those he likes, Agnes."

"I see. He hasn't any brains, and his guests suit him for the same reason."

"They eat a great deal," wailed Lady Garvington. "I'm sure I might as well be a cook. All my time is taken up with feeding them."

"Well, Freddy married you, Jane, because you had a genius for looking after food. Your mother was much the same; she always kept a good table." Lady Agnes laughed. "Yours was a most original wooing, Jane."

"I'd like to live on bread and water for my part, Agnes."

"Put Freddy on it, dear. He's getting too stout. I never thought that gluttony was a crime. But when I look at Freddy"--checking her speech, she spread out her hands with an ineffable look--"I'm glad that Noel is coming," she ended, rather daringly. "At least he will be more interesting than any of these frivolous people you have collected."

Lady Garvington looked at her anxiously. "You don't mind Noel coming?"

"No, dear. Why should I?"

"Well you see, Agnes, I fancied--"

"Don't fancy anything. Noel and I entirely understand one another."

"I hope," blurted out the other woman, "that it is a right understanding?"

Agnes winced, and looked at her with enforced composure. "I am devoted to my husband," she said, with emphasis. "And I have every reason to be.

He has kept his part of the bargain, so I keep mine. But," she added with a pale smile, "when I think how I sold myself to keep up the credit of the family, and now see Freddy entertaining this riff-raff, I am sorry that I did not marry Noel, whom I loved so dearly."

"That would have meant our ruin," bleated Lady Garvington, sadly.

"Your ruin is only delayed, Jane. Freddy is a weak, self-indulgent fool, and is eating his way into the next world. It will be a happy day for you when an apoplectic fit makes you a widow."

"My dear," the wife was shocked, "he is your brother."

"More's the pity. I have no illusions about Freddy, Jane, and I don't think you have either. Now, go away and sleep. It's no use lying awake thinking over to-morrow's dinner. Give Freddy the bread and water you talked about."

Lady Garvington laughed in a weak, aimless way, and then kissed her sister-in-law with a sigh, after which she drifted out of the room in her usual vague manner. Very shortly the clock over the stables struck midnight, and by that time Garvington the virtuous had induced all his men guests to go to bed. The women chatted a little longer, and then, in their turn, sought repose. By half-past twelve the great house was in complete darkness, and bulked a mighty ma.s.s of darkness in the pale September moonlight.

Lady Agnes got to bed quickly, and tired out by the boredom of the evening, quickly fell asleep. Suddenly she awoke with all her senses on the alert, and with a sense of vague danger hovering round. There were sounds of running feet and indistinct oaths and distant cries, and she could have sworn that a pistol-shot had startled her from slumber. In a moment she was out of bed and ran to open her window. On looking out she saw that the moonlight was very brilliant, and in it beheld a tall man running swiftly from the house. He sped down the broad path, and just when he was abreast of a miniature shrubbery, she heard a second shot, which seemed to be fired there-from. The man staggered, and stumbled and fell. Immediately afterwards, her brother--she recognized his voice raised in anger--ran out of the house, followed by some of the male guests. Terrified by the sight and the sound of the shots, Lady Agnes huddled on her dressing-gown hastily, and thrust her bare feet into slippers. The next moment she was out of her bedroom and down the stairs. A wild idea had entered her mind that perhaps Lambert had come secretly to The Manor, and had been shot by Garvington in mistake for a burglar. The corridors and the hall were filled with guests more or less lightly attired, mostly women, white-faced and startled. Agnes paid no attention to their shrieks, but hurried into the side pa.s.sage which terminated at the door out of which her brother had left the house. She went outside also and made for the group round the fallen man.