“Very much the reverse,” he answered; “never was more gloomy in my life, not even when I thought I had to die within six hours of blackwater fever.  Also I have lots that I want to talk to you about and I can’t do it at the end of this confounded wire that your uncle may be tapping.”

“I thought it might be so,” answered Barbara, “so I just rang you up to wish you good-morning and to say that I am coming over in the motor to lunch with my maid Snell as chaperone.  All right, don’t remonstrate, I am coming over to lunch—­I can’t hear you—­never mind what people will say.  I am coming over to lunch at one o’clock, mind you are in.  Good-bye, I don’t want much to eat, but have something for Snell and the chauffeur.  Good-bye.”

Then the wire went dead, nor could all Alan’s “Hello’s” and “Are you there’s?” extract another syllable.

Having ordered the best luncheon that his old housekeeper could provide Alan went off for his walk in much better spirits, which were further improved by his success in persuading the tenant to do without the new buildings for another year.  In a year, he reflected, anything might happen.  Then he returned by the wood where a number of new-felled oaks lay ready for barking.  This was not a cheerful sight; it seemed so cruel to kill the great trees just as they were pushing their buds for another summer of life.  But he consoled himself by recalling that they had been too crowded and that the timber was really needed on the estate.  As he reached the house again carrying a bunch of white violets which he had plucked in a sheltered place for Barbara, he perceived a motor travelling at much more than the legal speed up the walnut avenue which was the pride of the place.  In it sat that young lady herself, and her maid, Snell, a middle-aged woman with whom, as it chanced, he was on very good terms, as once, at some trouble to himself, he had been able to do her a kindness.

The motor pulled up at the front door and out of it sprang Barbara, laughing pleasantly and looking fresh and charming as the spring itself.

“There will be a row over this, dear,” said Alan, shaking his head doubtfully when at last they were alone together in the hall.

“Of course, there’ll be a row,” she answered.  “I mean that there should be a row.  I mean to have a row every day if necessary, until they leave me alone to follow my own road, and if they won’t, as I said, to go to the Court of Chancery for protection.  Oh! by the way, I have brought you a copy of The Judge.  There’s a most awful article in it about that Sahara flotation, and among other things it announces that you have left the firm and congratulates you upon having done so.”

“They’ll think I have put it in,” groaned Alan as he glanced at the head lines, which were almost libellous in their vigour, and the summaries of the financial careers of Sir Robert Aylward and Mr. Champers-Haswell.  “It will make them hate me more than ever, and I say, Barbara, we can’t live in an atmosphere of perpetual warfare for the next two years.”