“By Gad!  I’ve a choice of half a dozen,” he exclaimed.

It need scarcely be said that he selected the best; and after slitting with his pocket-knife the tires of all the others, he mounted and pedalled quietly down the drive.  The lodge gates stood open; the road, a trifle muddy but clear of all traffic, stretched visible for a long way in the starlight; the breeze blew fair behind him.

“May Providence guide me to the station,” he prayed, and rode off into the night.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Suppose the clock be set back four-and-twenty hours, and behold now the Baron von Blitzenberg, the diplomatist and premier baron of Bavaria, engaged in unhappy argument with himself.  Unhappy, because his reason, though so carefully trained from the kindergarten upward, proved unable to combat the dismal onsets of superstition.

“Pooh! who cares for an old picture?” Reason would reiterate.

“It is an omen,” said Superstition simply; and Reason stood convicted as an empty braggart.

But if Time be the great healer, Dinner is at least a clever quack, and when he and old Mr. Rentoul had consumed well-nigh a bottle and a half of their host’s port between them, the outlook became much less gloomy.  A particularly hilarious evening in the drawing-room completed the triumph of mind over what he was now able to term “jost nonsense,” and he slept that night as soundly as the Count was simultaneously slumbering in Sir Justin’s bed-room.  And there was no unpleasant awakening in the Baron’s case.  On the contrary, all nature seemed in a conspiracy to make the last day of his adventure pleasant.  The sun shone brightly, his razors had an excellent edge, sausages were served for breakfast, and when he joined the family afterwards he found them as affectionately kind as a circle of relations.  In fact, the Baron had dropped more than one hint the night before of such a nature that they had some reason for supposing relationship imminent.  It is true Eva was a little disappointed that the actual words were not yet said, and when he made an airy reference to paying a farewell call that morning upon their neighbors at Lincoln Lodge, she exhibited so much disapproval in her air that he said at once—­

“Ach, vell, I shall jost go after lonch and be back in an hour and a half.  I jost vish to say good-bye, zat is all.”

Little guessing how much was to hang upon this postponement, he drove over after luncheon with a mind entirely reassured.  With only an afternoon to be safely passed, no mishap, he was sure, could possibly happen now.  If indeed the Maddisons chose to be offended with him, why, then, his call would merely be the briefer and he would recommend Eva for the post of Lady Tulliwuddle without qualification.  It was his critics who had reason to fear, not he.

Miss Maddison was at home, the staff of footmen assured him, and, holding his head as high as a chieftain should, he strode into her sanctuary.