* * * * *

Meanwhile Meadows walked back to the house. He had been a good deal
nettled by Lady Dunstable's last remark to him. But he had taken pains
not to show it. Doris might say such things to him--but no one else.
They were, of course, horribly true! Well--quarrelling with Lady
Dunstable was amusing enough--when there was room to escape her. But how
would it be in the close quarters of a yacht?

On his way through the garden he fell in with Miss Field--Mattie Field,
the plump and smiling cousin of the house, who was apparently as
necessary to the Dunstables in the Highlands, as in London, or at Crosby
Ledgers. Her rôle in the Dunstable household seemed to Meadows to be
that of "shock absorber." She took all the small rubs and jars on her
own shoulders, so that Lady Dunstable might escape them. If the fish did
not arrive from Edinburgh, if the motor broke down, if a gun failed, or
a guest set up influenza, it was always Miss Field who came to the
rescue. She had devices for every emergency. It was generally supposed
that she had no money, and that the Dunstables made her residence with
them worth while. But if so, she had none of the ways of the poor
relation. On the contrary, her independence was plain; she had a very
free and merry tongue; and Lady Dunstable, who snubbed everybody, never
snubbed Mattie Field. Lord Dunstable was clearly devoted to her.

She greeted Meadows rather absently.

"Rachel didn't carry you off? Oh, then--I wonder if I may ask you
something?"

Meadows assured her she might ask him anything.