“She can have my room,” said Mary; “Fiddle and I can go up-stairs——­”

They moved Madge, and Mrs. Flippin and Mary got her to bed.  The Major sat in the sitting-room and talked to Randy, and as he talked he held Madge’s hat in his hand.  It had a brim of straw and a crown of mauve silk.  The Major, turning it round and round on a meditative finger, thought of the woman who had worn it.  She was a pretty woman, a very oddly pretty woman.

“Is she related to Mrs. Waterman, Kemp?” he asked.

“No, sir.  But she’s been there all summer.  And then she went away, and they sent for her because Mrs. Waterman is ill.”

Randy rather indiscreetly flung out, “It seems as if the trail of that Waterman crowd is over our world.  I suppose we shall have to get the news of this up to them somehow.”

“I can telephone Mr. Dalton, sir.”

“Is Dalton still there?”

“Yes, sir.  And he had a headache this morning, and stayed in bed, or he would have been in the car, sir——­”

Randy wished bloodthirstily that Dalton had been in the car.  Why couldn’t Dalton have been smashed instead of Madge?

“I might call up Mr. Waterman instead of Mr. Dalton,” Kemp suggested.  “If Mr. Dalton’s in bed, he’ll hate to be disturbed.”

“Are you afraid of him, Kemp?”

Kemp’s honest eyes met Randy’s burning glance.  “No, I am not afraid.  I am leaving his service, sir.”

They stared at him.  “Leaving his service, why?” Randy demanded.

“He called me a fool this morning.  And I am not a fool, sir.”

“What made him say that?” Randy asked, with interest.

“He ordered a kidney omelette for breakfast, and I brought it, and he wouldn’t eat it, and blamed me.  I am willing to serve any man, but not without self-respect, sir.”

“What are you going to do now, Kemp?” the Major asked.

“Find a better man to work for.”

“It won’t be hard,” Randy interpolated.

“Work for me,” said the Major.

Kemp was eager——!  “For you, sir?”

“Yes.  I need somebody to be legs for me—­I’m only half a man.  The place is open for you if you want it.”

“I shall want it in a week,” said Kemp; “I shall have to give him notice.”

“There will be three musketeers in the old Schoolhouse, Paine.  We have all seen service.”

“It will be the best thing that ever happened to me, sir,” said Kemp ecstatically, “to know that I can wait on a fighting man.”  He swung down the hall to the telephone as if he marched to the swirl of pipes.

“Isn’t Dalton a brute?” said Randy.

“He that calleth his brother a fool——­” mused the Major.  He was still turning the mauve hat in his hands.  “It is queer,” he said unexpectedly, “how some women make you think of some flowers.  Did you notice everything Miss MacVeigh wore was lilac—­and there’s the perfume of it about her things——­”