What Joan Brett really felt, as she went back from the second tête-à-tête she had experienced in the turret¹, it is doubtful if anyone will ever know. But she was full of the pungent² feminine instinct to “drive at practice,” and what she did clearly realise was the pencil writing Dalroy had left on the back of Lord Ivywood’s menu. Heaven alone knew what it was, and (as it pleased her profane³ temper to tell herself) she was not satisfied with Heaven alone knowing. She went swiftly back, with swishing skirts, to the table where it had been left. But her skirts fell more softly and her feet trailed slower and more in her usual manner as she came near the table. For standing⁴ at it was Lord Ivywood, reading the card with tranquil⁵ lowered eyelids⁶, that set off perfectly⁷ the long and perfect oval of his face. He put down the card with a quite natural action; and, seeing Joan, smiled at her in his most sympathetic way.  
“So you’ve come out too,” he said. “So have I; it’s really too hot for anything. Dr. Gluck is making an uncommonly⁸ good speech, but I couldn’t stop even for that. Don’t you think my eastern decorations are rather a success after all? A sort of Vegetarianism¹⁰ in design, isn’t it?”
 
He led her up and down the corridors, pointing out lemon-coloured crescents or crimson¹¹ pomegranates in the scheme of ornament¹², with such utter detachment that they twice passed the open mouth of the hall of debate, and Joan could distinctly hear the voice of the diplomatic Gluck saying:
 
“Indeed, we owe our knowledge of the pollution of the pork primarily to the Jewth and not the Mothlemth. I do not thare that prejudithe against the Jewth, which ith too common in my family and all the arithtocratic and military Prutthian familieth. I think we Prutthian arithocrats owe everything to the Jewth. The Jewth have given to our old Teutonic rugged¹³ virtueth, jutht that touch of refinement¹⁴, jutht that intellectual thuperiority which——.”
 
And then the voice would die away behind, as Lord Ivywood lectured luxuriantly, and very well, on the peacock tail in decoration, or some more extravagant¹⁵ eastern version of the Greek Key. But the third time they turned, they heard the noise of subdued¹⁶ applause and the breaking up the meeting; and people came pouring forth¹⁷.
 
With stillness and swiftness, Ivywood pitched on the people he wanted and held them. He button-holed Leveson and was evidently asking him to do something which neither of the two liked doing.
 
“If your lordship insists,” she heard Leveson whispering, “of course I will go myself; but there is a great deal to be done here with your lordship’s immediate¹⁸ matters. And if there were anyone else——.”
 
If Phillip, Lord Ivywood, had ever looked at a human being in his life, he would have seen that J. Leveson, Secretary, was suffering from a very ancient human malady¹⁹, excusable in all men and rather more excusable in one who has had his top-hat smashed over his eyes and has run for his life. As it was, he saw nothing, but merely said, “Oh, well, get someone else. What about your friend Hibbs?”
 
Leveson ran across to Hibbs, who was drinking another glass of champagne²¹ at one of the innumerable buffets²².
 
“Hibbs,” said Leveson, rather nervously²³, “will you do Lord Ivywood a favour? He says you have so much tact²⁴. It seems possible that a man may be hanging about the grounds just below that turret there. He is a man it would certainly be Lord Ivywood’s public duty to put into the hands of the police, if he is there. But then, again, he is quite capable of not being there at all—I mean of having sent his message from somewhere else and in some other way. Naturally, Lord Ivywood doesn’t want to alarm the ladies and perhaps turn the laugh against himself, by getting up a sort of police raid about nothing. He wants some sensible, tactful friend of his to go down and look round the place—it’s a sort of disused garden—and report if there’s anyone about. I’d go myself, but I’m wanted here.”
 
Hibbs nodded, and filled another glass.
 
“But there’s a further difficulty,” went on Leveson. “He’s a clever brute²⁵, it seems, a ‘remarkable and a dangerous man,’ were his lordship’s words; and it looks as if he’d spotted²⁶ a very good hiding-place, a disused tunnel leading to the sands, just beyond the disused garden and chapel²⁷. It’s a smart choice, you see, for he can bolt into the woods if anyone comes from the shore, or on to the shore if anyone comes from the woods. But it would take a good time even to get the police here, and it would take ten times longer to get ’em round to the sea end of the tunnel, especially as the sea comes up to the cliffs once or twice between here and Pebblewick. So we mustn’t frighten him away, or he’ll get a start. If you meet anyone down there talk to him quite naturally, and come back with the news. We won’t send for the police till you come. Talk as if you were just wandering like himself. His lordship wishes your presence to appear quite accidental.”
 
“Wishes my presence to appear quite accidental,” repeated Hibbs, gravely.
 
When the feverish²⁸ Leveson had flashed off satisfied, Hibbs took a glass or two more of wine; feeling that he was going on a great diplomatic mission to please a lord. Then he went through the opening, picked his way down the stair, and somehow found his way out into the neglected garden and shrubbery.
 
It was already evening, and an early moon was brightening over the sunken chapel with its dragon-coloured scales of fungus²⁹. The night breeze was very fresh and had a marked effect on Mr. Hibbs. He found himself taking a meaningless pleasure in the scene; especially in one fungus that was white with brown spots. He laughed shortly, to think that it should be white with brown spots. Then he said, with carefully accurate articulation³⁰, “His lordship wishes my presence to appear quite accidental.” Then he tried to remember something else that Leveson had said.
 
He began to wade³¹ through the waves of weed and thorn past the Chapel, but he found the soil much more uneven³² and obstructive than he had supposed.
 
He slipped, and sought to save himself by throwing one arm round a broken stone angel at a corner of the heap of Gothic fragments; but it was loose and rocked in its socket³³.
 
Mr. Hibbs presented for a moment the appearance of waltzing with the Angel in the moonlight, in a very amorous³⁴ and irreverent manner. Then the statue rolled over one way and he rolled over the other, and lay on his face in the grass, making inaudible remarks. He might have lain there for some time, or at least found some difficulty in rising, but for another circumstance. The dog Quoodle, with characteristic officiousness, had followed him down the dark stairs and out of the doorway³⁵, and, finding him in this unusual posture³⁶, began to bark as if the house were on fire.
 
This brought a heavy human footstep from the more hidden parts of the copse; and in a minute or two the large man with the red hair was looking down at him in undisguised wonder. Hibbs said, in a muffled³⁷ voice which came obscurely from under his hidden face, “Wish my presence to appear quite accidental.”
 
“It does,” said the Captain, “can I help you up? Are you hurt?”
 
He gently set the prostrate³⁸ gentleman on his feet, and looked genuinely concerned. The fall had somewhat sobered Lord Ivywood’s representative; and he really had a red graze on the left cheek that looked more ugly than it was.
 
“I am so sorry,” said Patrick Dalroy, cordially, “come and sit down in our camp. My friend Pump will be back presently, and he’s a capital doctor.”
 
His friend Pump may or may not have been a capital doctor, but the Captain himself was certainly a most inefficient³⁹ one. So small was his talent for diagnosing the nature of a disease at sight, that having given Mr. Hibbs a seat on a fallen tree by the tunnel, he proceeded to give him (in mere²⁰ automatic hospitality) a glass of rum.
 
Mr. Hibbs’s eyes awoke again, when he had sipped⁴⁰ it, but they awoke to a new world.
 
“Wharever may be our invidual pinions,” he said, and looked into space with an expression of humorous sagacity.
 
He then put his hand hazily⁴¹ in his pocket, as if to find some letter he had to deliver. He found nothing but his old journalistic note book, which he often carried when there was a chance of interviewing anybody. The feel of it under his fingers changed the whole attitude of his mind. He took it out and said:
 
“And wha’ would you say of Vegetarianism, Colonel Pump?”
 
“I think it palls,” replied the recipient⁴² of this complex title, staring.
 
“Sha’ we say,” asked Hibbs brightly, turning a leaf in his note book, “sha’ we say long been strong vegetarian⁹ by conviction?”
 
“No; I have only once been convicted,” answered Dalroy, with restraint, “and I hope to lead a better life when I come out.”
 
“Hopes lead better life,” murmured Hibbs, writing eagerly, with the wrong end of his pencil. “And wha’ would you shay was best vegable food for really strong veg’tarian by conviction?”
 
“Thistles,” said the Captain, wearily. “But I don’t know much about it, you know.”
 
“Lord Ivywoo’ strong veg’tarian by conviction,” said Mr. Hibbs, shaking his head with unction. “Lord Ivywoo’ says tact. Talk to him naturally. And so I do. That’s what I do. Talk to him naturally.”
 
Humphrey Pump came through the clearer part of the wood, leading the donkey, who had just partaken of the diet recommended to a vegetarian by conviction; the dog sprang up and ran to them. Pump was, perhaps, the most naturally polite man in the world, and said nothing. But his eyes had accepted, with one snap of surprise, the other fact, also not unconnected with diet, which had escaped Dalroy’s notice when he administered rum as a restorative.
 
“Lord Ivywoo’ says,” murmured the journalistic diplomatist. “Lord Ivywoo’ says, ‘talk as if you were just wandering.’ That’s it. That’s tact. That’s what I’ve got to do—talk as if I was just wandering. Long way round to other end tunnel; sea and cliffs. Don’ sphose they can swim.” He seized his note book again and looked in vain for his pencil. “Good subjec’ correspondence. Can policem’n swim?”
 
“Policemen?” said Dalroy, in a dead silence. The dog looked up, and the innkeeper did not.
 
“Get to Ivywoo’ one thing,” reasoned the diplomatist. “Get policemen beach other end other thing. No good do one thing no’ do other thing, no goo’ do other thing no’ do other thing. Wish my presence appear quite accidental. Haw!”
 
“I’ll harness the donkey,” said Pump.
 
“Will he go through that door?” asked Dalroy, with a gesture toward the entrance of the rough boarding with which they had faced the tunnel, “or shall I smash it all at once?”
 
“He’ll go through all right,” answered Pump. “I saw to that when I made it. And I think I’ll get him to the safe end of the tunnel before I load him up. The best thing you can do is to pull up one of those saplings to bar the door with. That’ll delay them a minute or two; though I think we’ve got warning in pretty easy time.”
 
He led his donkey to the cart, and carefully harnessed the donkey; like all men cunning in the old healthy sense he knew that the last chance of leisure ought to be leisurely⁴³, in order that it may be lucid⁴⁴. Then he led the whole equipment through the temporary wooden door of the tunnel, the inquisitive⁴⁵ Quoodle, of course, following at his heels.
 
“Excuse me if I take a tree,” said Dalroy, politely, to his guest, like a man reaching across another man for a match. And with that he rent up a young tree by its roots, as he had done in the Island of the Olives, and carried it on his shoulder, like the club of Hercules.
 
Up in Ivywood House Lord Ivywood had telephoned twice to Pebblewick. It was a delay he seldom suffered; and, though he never expressed impatience⁴⁶ in unnecessary words he expressed it in unnecessary walking. He would not yet send for the police without news from his Ambassador, but he thought a preliminary conversation with some police authorities he knew well, might advance matters. Seeing Leveson rather shrunk in a corner, he wheeled round in his walk and said abruptly⁴⁷:
 
“You must go and see what has happened to Hibbs. If you have any other duties here, I authorize⁴⁸ you to neglect them. Otherwise, I can only say——”
 
At this moment the telephone rang, and the impatient nobleman rushed for his delayed call with a rapidity he seldom showed. There was simply nothing for Leveson to do except to do as he was told, or be sacked. He walked swiftly toward the staircase, and only stopped once at the table where Hibbs had stood and gulped⁴⁹ down two goblets⁵⁰ of the same wine. But let no man attribute to Mr. Leveson the loose and luxurious⁵¹ social motives⁵³ of Mr. Hibbs. Mr. Leveson did not drink for pleasure; in fact, he hardly knew what he was drinking. His motive⁵² was something far more simple and sincere; a sentiment forcibly described in legal phraseology as going in bodily fear.
 
He was partly nerved, but by no means reconciled to his adventure, when he crept carefully down the stairs and peered about the thicket⁵⁴ for any signs of his diplomatic friend. He could find neither sight nor sound to guide him, except a sort of distant singing, which greatly increased in volume of sound as he pursued it. The first words he heard seemed to run something like—
 
“No more the milk of cows
Shall pollute my private house,
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian⁵⁵;
I will stick to port and sherry,
For they are so very, very,
So very, very, very Vegetarian.
Leveson did not kn............