residence in a frame of mind that was moderately complacent. As the

thing was going to be done he was glad to feel that he was going to
get it settled and off his mind that afternoon. Proposing marriage,

even to a nice girl like Joan, was a rather irksome business, but
one could not have a honeymoon in Minorca and a subsequent life of

married happiness without such preliminary. He wondered what
Minorca was really like as a place to stop in; in his mind's eye it

was an island in perpetual half-mourning, with black or white
Minorca hens running all over it. Probably it would not be a bit

like that when one came to examine it. People who had been in
Russia had told him that they did not remember having seen any

Muscovy ducks there, so it was possible that there would be no
Minorca fowls on the island.

His Mediterranean musings were interrupted by the sound of a clock
striking the half-hour. Half-past four. A frown of dissatisfaction

settled on his face. He would arrive at the Sebastable mansion just
at the hour of afternoon tea. Joan would be seated at a low table,

spread with an array of silver kettles and cream-jugs and delicate
porcelain tea-cups, behind which her voice would tinklepleasantly

in a series of little friendly questions about weak or strong tea,
how much, if any, sugar, milk, cream, and so forth. "Is it one

lump? I forgot. You do take milk, don't you? Would you like some
more hot water, if it's too strong?"

Cushat-Prinkly had read of such things in scores of novels, and
hundreds of actual experiences had told him that they were true to

life. Thousands of women, at this solemn afternoon hour, were
sitting behind daintyporcelain and silver fittings, with their

voices tinkling pleasantly in a cascade of solicitous little
questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested the whole system of afternoon

tea. According to his theory of life a woman should lie on a divan
or couch, talking with incomparable charm or looking unutterable

thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be looked on, and from
behind a silken curtain a small Nubian page should silently bring in

a tray with cups and dainties, to be accepted silently, as a matter
of course, without drawn-out chatter about cream and sugar and hot

water. If one's soul was really enslaved at one's mistress's feet
how could one talk coherently about weakened tea? Cushat-Prinkly

had never expounded his views on the subject to his mother; all her
life she had been accustomed to tinklepleasantly at tea-time behind

daintyporcelain and silver, and if he had spoken to her about
divans and Nubian pages she would have urged him to take a week's

holiday at the seaside. Now, as he passed through a tangle of small
streets that led indirectly to the elegant Mayfair terrace for which

he was bound, a horror at the idea of confronting Joan Sebastable at
her tea-table seized on him. A momentarydeliverance presented

itself; on one floor of a narrow little house at the noisier end of
Esquimault Street lived Rhoda Ellam, a sort of remote cousin, who

made a living by creating hats out of costly materials. The hats
really looked as if they had come from Paris; the cheques she got

for them unfortunately never looked as if they were going to Paris.
However, Rhoda appeared to find life amusing and to have a fairly

good time in spite of her straitened circumstances. Cushat-Prinkly
decided to climb up to her floor and defer by half-an-hour or so the

important business which lay before him; by spinning out his visit
he could contrive to reach the Sebastable mansion after the last

vestiges of daintyporcelain had been cleared away.
Rhoda welcomed him into a room that seemed to do duty as workshop,

sitting-room, and kitchen combined, and to be wonderfully clean and
comfortable at the same time.

"I'm having a picnic meal," she announced. "There's caviare in that
jar at your elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut

some more. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell
me about hundreds of things."

She made no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made
her visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut the bread-

and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and sliced
lemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and

regrets for not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was
enjoying an excellent tea without having to answer as many questions

about it as a Minister for Agriculture might be called on to reply
to during an outbreak of cattle plague.

"And now tell me why you have come to see me," said Rhoda suddenly.
"You arouse not merely my curiosity but my business instincts. I

hope you've come about hats. I heard that you had come into a
legacy the other day, and, of course, it struck me that it would be

a beautiful and desirable thing for you to celebrate the event by
buying brilliantlyexpensive hats for all your sisters. They may

not have said anything about it, but I feel sure the same idea has
occurred to them. Of course, with Goodwood on us, I am rather

rushed just now, but in my business we're accustomed to that; we
live in a series of rushes--like the infant Moses."

"I didn't come about hats," said her visitor. "In fact, I don't
think I really came about anything. I was passing and I just

thought I'd look in and see you. Since I've been sitting talking to
you, however, rather important idea has occurred to me. If you'll

forget Goodwood for a moment and listen to me, I'll tell you what it
is."

Some forty minutes later James Cushat-Prinkly returned to the bosom
of his family, bearing an important piece of news.

"I'm engaged to be married," he announced.
A rapturous outbreak of congratulation and self-applause broke out.

"Ah, we knew! We saw it coming! We foretold it weeks ago!"
"I'll bet you didn't," said Cushat-Prinkly. "If any one had told me

at lunch-time to-day that I was going to ask Rhoda Ellam to marry me
and that she was going to accept me I would have laughed at the

idea."
The romantic suddenness of the affair in some measure compensated

James's women-folk for the ruthless negation of all their patient
effort and skilleddiplomacy. It was rather trying to have to

deflect their enthusiasm at a moment's notice from Joan Sebastable
to Rhoda Ellam; but, after all, it was James's wife who was in

question, and his tastes had some claim to be considered.
On a September afternoon of the same year, after the honeymoon in

Minorca had ended, Cushat-Prinkly came into the drawing-room of his
new house in Granchester Square. Rhoda was seated at a low table,

behind a service of daintyporcelain and gleaming silver. There was
a pleasant tinkling note in her voice as she handed him a cup.

"You like it weaker than that, don't you? Shall I put some more hot
water to it? No?"

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CRISPINA UMBERLEIGH
In a first-classcarriage of a train speeding Balkanward across the

flat, green Hungarian plain two Britons sat in friendly, fitful
converse. They had first foregathered in the cold grey dawn at the

frontier line, where the presiding eagle takes on an extra head and
Teuton lands pass from Hohenzollern to Habsburg keeping--and where a

probing official beak requires to delve in polite and perhaps
perfunctory, but always tiresome, manner into the baggage of sleep-

hungry passengers. After a day's break of their journey at Vienna
the travellers had again foregathered at the trainside and paid one

another the compliment of settling instinctively into the same
carriage. The elder of the two had the appearance and manner of a

diplomat; in point of fact he was the well-connected foster-brother
of a wine business. The other was certainly a journalist. Neither

man was talkative and each was grateful to the other for not being
talkative. That is why from time to time they talked.

One topic of conversation naturally thrust itself forward in front
of all others. In Vienna the previous day they had learned of the

mysterious vanishing of a world-famous picture from the walls of the
Louvre.

"A dramaticdisappearance of that sort is sure to produce a crop of
imitations," said the Journalist.

"It has had a lot of anticipations, for the matter of that," said
the Wine-brother.

"Oh, of course there have been thefts from the Louvre before."
"I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings rather than

pictures. In particular I was thinking of the case of my aunt,
Crispina Umberleigh."

"I remember hearing something of the affair," said the Journalist,
"but I was away from England at the time. I never quite knew what