"I say, Mr. Sax!" he called out, "Miss Morris doesn't mind you a bit--she only laughs at you."

The answer to this was the sudden closing of a door. Mr. Sax had taken refuge from me in one of the ground-floor rooms. I was so mortified, I could almost have cried.

Getting down into the hall, we found Mrs. Fosdyke with her garden hat on, and one of the two ladies who were staying in the house (the unmarried one) whispering to her at the door of the morning-room. The lady--Miss Melbury--looked at me with a certain appearance of curiosity which I was quite at a loss to understand, and suddenly turned away toward the further end of the hall.

"I will walk with you and the children," Mrs. Fosdyke said to me. "Freddy, you can ride your tricycle if you like." She turned to the girls. "My dears, it's cool under the trees. You may take your skipping-ropes."

She had evidently something special to say to me; and she had adopted the necessary measures for keeping the children in front of us, well out of hearing. Freddy led the way on his horse on three wheels; the girls followed, skipping merrily. Mrs. Fosdyke opened the business by the most embarrassing remark that she could possibly have made under the circumstances.

"I find that you are acquainted with Mr. Sax," she began; "and I am surprised to hear that you dislike him."

She smiled pleasantly, as if my supposed dislike of Mr. Sax rather amused her. What "the ruling passion" may be among men, I cannot presume to consider. My own sex, however, I may claim to understand. The ruling passion among women is Conceit. My ridiculous notion of my own consequence was wounded in some way. I assumed a position of the loftiest indifference.

"Really, ma'am," I said, "I can't undertake to answer for any impression that Mr. Sax may have formed. We met by the merest accident. I know nothing about him."

Mrs. Fosdyke eyed me slyly, and appeared to be more amused than ever.

"He is a very odd man," she admitted, "but I can tell you there is a fine nature under that strange surface of his. However," she went on, "I am forgetting that he forbids me to talk about him in your presence. When the opportunity offers, I shall take my own way of teaching you two to understand each other: you will both be grateful to me when I have succeeded. In the meantime, there is a third person who will be sadly disappointed to hear that you know nothing about Mr. Sax."

"May I ask, ma'am, who the person is?"

"Can you keep a secret, Miss Morris? Of course you can! The person is Miss Melbury."

(Miss Melbury was a dark woman. It cannot be because I am a fair woman myself--I hope I am above such narrow prejudices as that--but it is certainly true that I don't admire dark women.)

"She heard Mr. Sax telling me that you particularly disliked him, " Mrs.