pantry and is in danger of a thrashing," was Jarvis's whimsical
admission. "See here. I'll give you leave to take it out of me all you
like. I'll agree to meet you at midnight in the timber tract, and take
whatever you see fit to administer--provided you'll keep in before the
rest. What do you say?" In making this preposterous proposition he was
apparently perfectly serious.

It was as Mrs. Burnside had said. If anybody could manage Max's proud
stubbornness, it was Jarvis, with his cool command of himself and his
inborn habit of courtesy to everybody. Yet even Jarvis had his hands full
to-night. Max's physical condition of fatigue and overwrought nerves made
him more than ordinarily captious and difficult to handle.

"Confound you, you've got me in a corner!" he muttered. "That's what I
don't like. If you had come out in the open with your plans--"

"You'd have refused me."

"You just said you counted on my generosity. If you were so sure of it,
why didn't you ask for it?"

Jarvis laughed. "Oh, be reasonable! Don't you let people plot, at
Christmas time and on birthdays, to take you by surprise? You hardly
call it not being in the open because they don't ask your permission to
present you with a house-jacket or a fountain-pen!"

The horses trotted briskly on, quiet ensuing behind them for a little
while. Max fell into a sulky silence; Sally into a happy one, as she
leaned out, watching for the final turn in the road before the pines
should come into sight. Jarvis was wondering just how Max would behave,