"Perhaps we could persuade him to return to lunch with us?" she
hazarded. "And that would be so nice."

"You must do what you can with him," John Derringham said. "I have
prepared him to find you beautiful--as you are."

"You say lovely things about me behind my back, then?" she laughed. "Now
he will be disappointed!"

"Yes, I admit it was a _bêtíse_--but, being my real thoughts, they
slipped out when I was there to-day. You will have to be extra charming
to substantiate them."

Before Mrs. Cricklander went to bed, she called Arabella Clinker into
her room.

"Arabella," she said, "who was Cheiron?" But she pronounced the "ei" as
an "a," so Miss Clinker replied without any hesitation:

"He was a boatman who carried the souls of the dead over the River Styx,
and to whom they were obliged to pay an obolus--son of Erebus and Nox.
He is represented as an old man with a hideous face and long white beard
and piercing eyes."

"Is there anything else I ought to know about him?" her employer asked,
and Arabella thought for a moment.

"There is the story of Hercules not showing the golden bow. Er--it is a
little complicated and has to do with the superstitions of the