When he had gone I set down the tray, shut the door, and went to see how I really did look with my hair hanging round my shoulders.  My ideas on the subject of sirenhood are vague; but I must confess, if the creatures are like me with my hair down, they must be quite nice, harmless little persons.  I admire my hair, there’s so much of it; and at the ends, a good long way below my waist, there’s such a thoroughly agreeable curl, like a yellow sea-wave just about to break.  Of course, that sounds very vain; but why shouldn’t one admire one’s own things, if one has things worth admiring?  It seems rather ungrateful to Providence to cry them down; and ingratitude was never a favourite vice with me.

One would have said that the chauffeur knew by instinct what I liked best to eat, and he must have had a very persuasive way with the waiter.  There was creme d’orge, in a big cup; there were sweetbreads, and there was lemon meringue.  Nothing ever tasted better since my “birthday feasts” as a child, when I was allowed to order my own dinner.

My room being on the first floor, though separated by a labyrinth of quaint passages from Lady Turnour’s, there was danger in a corridor conversation with Mr. Dane at an hour when people might be coming upstairs after dinner; but he was in such a hurry to escape from me that I had no time to explain; and I really had not the heart to make myself hideous, by way of disguise, as I’d planned before his knock at the door.  As an alternative I put on a hat, pinning quite a thick veil over my face, and when the expected tap came again, I was prepared for it.

“Are you going out?” my brother asked, looking surprised, when I flitted into the dim corridor, with Lady Turnour’s blue bag dutifully slipped on my arm.

“No,” I answered.  “I’m hiding.  I know that sounds mysterious, or melodramatic, or something silly, but it’s only disagreeable.  And it’s what I want to ask your advice about.”  Then, shamefacedly when it came to the point, I unfolded the tale of Monsieur Charretier.

“By Jove, and he’s in this house!” exclaimed the chauffeur, genuinely interested, and not a bit sulky.  “You haven’t an idea whether he’s been actually tracking you?”

“If he has, he must have employed detectives, and clever ones, too,” I said, defending my own strategy.

“Is he the sort of man who would do such a thing—­put detectives on a girl who’s run away from home to get rid of his attentions?”

“I don’t know.  I only know he has no idea of being a gentleman.  What can you expect of Corn Plasters?”

“Don’t throw his corn plasters in his face.  He might be a good fellow in spite of them.”

“Well, he isn’t—­or with them, either.  He may be acting with my cousin’s husband, who values him immensely, and wants him in the family.”

“Is he very rich?”

“Disgustingly,” said I, as I had said to Lady Kilmarny.