any man in that house. But who knows now where you will be this time to-morrow night? under lock and key, perhaps, or in the train for Paris? Oh, Fortune, Fortune, what a slut you are!"
I said this to myself, turning out of the lodge gate, and giving "good-night" to the keeper. It seemed only a week ago since we had driven up that same drive, and had been received by Mr. Oakley and his daughter just as if we were princes. And yet it was a month or more, and we had lived that time with never a man to come up to the White House—for that was the name of Mr. Oakley's place—to tell them that they had better make enquiries about their guest. A fine gentleman, as I have said, was that Mr. Oakley. We'd met him two winters back at Cannes, where my governor's riding caught his eye, as well it might, for there is no better horseman breathing than Nicky Steele. The friendship was warm from the first. Mr. Oakley was no man of the world, and knew nothing of what the world was talking about. And my master, like all Irishmen, had the gift of the gab. Talk! you'd think he was a boy of eighteen, and not a man hob-nobbing with the tail end of the thirties, as I know he must be. And it was no surprise to me that the young lady—Miss Janet her name was—stood friends with us so quickly. She'd lived all her life among boobies; and here was a man who knew every city worth the knowing, and could tell her tales of half the people in Europe. I said to myself often when I saw them walking in the old
