“After all, mamma, it was my own and Rudolph’s concern more than your’s!” exclaimed Alicia, flaring up for an instant.

“Don’t answer me, child!” thundered the Countess.  “Fetch me a railway time-table, and say nothing that may add to your sin!”

“A time-table, mamma?  What for?”

“I am going to Scotland,” pronounced the Countess.

“Then I shall go too!”

“Indeed you shall not.  You will wait here till I have brought Rudolph back to you.”

The Baroness said nothing aloud, but within her wounded heart she thought bitterly

“Mamma seems to forget that even worms will turn sometimes!”

CHAPTER XXVIII

“A decidedly delectable residence,” said Count Bunker to himself as his dog-cart approached the lodge gates of The Lash.  “And a very proper setting for the pleasant scenes so shortly to be enacted.  Lodge, avenue, a bogus turret or two, and a flagstaff on top of ’em—­ by Gad, I think one may safely assume a tolerable cellar in such a mansion.”

As he drove up the avenue between a double line of ancient elms and sycamores, his satisfaction increased and his spirits rose ever higher.

“I wonder if I can forecast the evening:  a game of three-handed bridge, in which I trust I’ll be lucky enough to lose a little silver, that’ll put ’em in good-humor and make old Miss What-d’ye-may-call-her the more willing to go to bed early; then the departure of the chaperon; and then the tete-a-tete!  I hope to Heaven I haven’t got rusty!”

With considerable satisfaction he ran over the outfit he had brought, deeming it even on second thoughts a singularly happy selection:  the dining coat with pale-blue lapels, the white tie of a new material and cut borrowed from the Baron’s finery, the socks so ravishingly embroidered that he had more than once caught the ladies at Hechnahoul casting affectionate glances upon them.

“A first-class turn-out,” he thought.  “And what a lucky thing I thought of borrowing a banjo from young Gallosh!  A coon song in the twilight will break the ground prettily.”

By this time they had stopped before the door, and an elderly man-servant, instead of waiting for the Count, came down the steps to meet him.  In his manner there was something remarkably sheepish and constrained, and, to the Count’s surprise, he thrust forth his hand almost as if he expected it to be shaken.  Bunker, though a trifle puzzled, promptly handed him the banjo case, remarking pleasantly—­

“My banjo; take care of it, please.”

The man started so violently that he all but dropped it upon the steps.

“What the deuce did he think I said?” wondered the Count. " ‘Banjo’ can’t have sounded ‘dynamite.’ "

He entered the house, and found himself in a pleasant hall, where his momentary uneasiness was at once forgotten in the charming welcome of his hostess.  Not only she, but her chaperon, received him with a flattering warmth that realized his utmost expectations.