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Contents (65)
  1. THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVIS
  2. * * *
  3. SAKI
  4. *
  5. Contents
  6. *
  7. Introduction
  8. *
  9. Esmé
  10. *
  11. The Match-Maker
  12. *
  13. Tobermory
  14. *
  15. Mrs. Packletide's Tiger
  16. *
  17. The Stampeding of Lady Bastable
  18. *
  19. The Background
  20. *
  21. Hermann the Irascible—A Story of the Great Weep
  22. *
  23. The Unrest-Cure
  24. *
  25. The Jesting of Arlington Stringham
  26. *
  27. Sredni Vashtar
  28. *
  29. Adrian
  30. *
  31. The Chaplet
  32. *
  33. The Quest
  34. *
  35. Wratislav
  36. *
  37. The Easter Egg
  38. *
  39. Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse that Helped
  40. *
  41. The Music on the Hill
  42. *
  43. The Story of St. Vespaluus
  44. *
  45. The Way to the Dairy
  46. *
  47. The Peace Offering
  48. *
  49. The Peace of Mowsle Barton
  50. *
  51. The Talking-Out of Tarrington
  52. *
  53. The Hounds of Fate
  54. *
  55. The Recessional
  56. *
  57. A Matter of Sentiment
  58. *
  59. The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope
  60. *
  61. "Ministers of Grace"
  62. *
  63. The Remoulding of Groby Lington
  64. *
  65. * * *

She shut her lips with the resolute finality of one who enjoys the blessed certainty of being implored to open them again.

"Further evidence!" exclaimed her hostess; "do tell me!"

"As I was coming upstairs after breakfast Mr. Brope was just passing my room. In the most natural way in the world a piece of paper dropped out of a packet that he held in his hand and fluttered to the ground just at my door. I was going to call out to him 'You've dropped something,' and then for some reason I held back and didn't show myself till he was safely in his room. You see it occurred to me that I was very seldom in my room just at that hour, and that Florinda was almost always there tidying up things about that time. So I picked up that innocent-looking piece of paper."

Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.

Mrs. Riversedge snipped vigorously at the nearest rose bush, incidentally decapitating a Viscountess Folkestone that was just coming into bloom.

"What was on the paper?" she asked.

"Just the words in pencil, 'I love you, Florrie,' and then underneath, crossed out with a faint line, but perfectly plain to read, 'Meet me in the garden by the yew.'"

"There IS a yew tree at the bottom of the garden," admitted Mrs. Riversedge.

"At any rate he appears to be truthful," commented Clovis.

"To think that a scandal of this sort should be going on under my roof!" said Mrs. Riversedge indignantly.

"I wonder why it is that scandal seems so much worse under a roof," observed Clovis; "I've always regarded it as a proof of the superior delicacy of the cat tribe that it conducts most of its scandals above the slates."

"Now I come to think of it," resumed Mrs. Riversedge, "there are things about Mr. Brope that I've never been able to account for. His income, for instance: he only gets two hundred a year as editor of the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY, and I know that his people are quite poor, and he hasn't any private means. Yet he manages to afford a flat somewhere in Westminster, and he goes abroad to Bruges and those sorts of places every year, and always dresses well, and gives quite nice luncheon-parties in the season. You can't do all that on two hundred a year, can you?"

"Does he write for any other papers?" queried Mrs. Troyle.

"No, you see he specializes so entirely on liturgy and ecclesiastical architecture that his field is rather restricted. He once tried the SPORTING AND DRAMATIC with an article on church edifices in famous fox-hunting centres, but it wasn't considered of sufficient general interest to be accepted. No, I don't see how he can support himself in his present style merely by what he writes."

"Perhaps he sells spurious transepts to American enthusiasts," suggested Clovis.

"How could you sell a transept?" said Mrs. Riversedge; "such a thing would be impossible."