After he had gone Mary stood for a while with knitted brows. Chef had finished telephoning. The kitchen was in silence. Suddenly she broke this silence.

"Chef," she exclaimed, "I'm no use at all! You'll just have to do the best you can about lunch by yourself."

And she left the kitchen with great swiftness, looking like an angel on the verge of tears.

Chef's shining red face divided into a white smile, and he began to bustle about and make a noise with pots and pans and carving tools, and to sing as he bustled:

"Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse,
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond—
Les belles dames font comm'ça,
Et puis encore comm'ça."

It is probable that in his gay Parisian youth Chef had known a good deal about les belles dames. He had latterly given much attention to the progress of Miss Darling's friendship with Mr. Langham, and that this same progress had received a sharp setback under his very nose concerned him not a little. Chef possessed altogether too much currency that had once belonged to that lavish tipper, Mr. Langham. And Chef did not wish Mr. Langham to be driven from the kitchen and The Camp. He wished Mr. Langham to become a permanent Darling asset—like himself and the French range. And so, half singing, half speaking, and furiously bustling, he announced:

"I'll show her how little difference she makes. Without advice or dictation, practically without supplies of any kind, I shall arrange, nom de Dieu! a luncheon which, for pure deliciousness, will not have been surpassed during the entire Christian era. I shall hint to her that I tolerate her in my kitchen because I have known her since she was a little girl, but I shall make it clear by words and deeds that her presence or absence is not of the least importance. Let her then turn for comfort to the worthy, generous, and rich Mr. Langham, for whom the mere poaching of an egg is an exquisite pleasure!"

And he frowned and began to think formidable and inventive thoughts about matters connected with his craft and immediate needs and necessities.

Mary Darling had, of late, often imagined herself receiving an offer of marriage from Mr. Langham. That is badly expressed. Only the most insufferable and self-sufficient of men make offers of marriage. Your true, modest, and chivalrous lover gets down on his real or figurative knees and begs and beseeches. She had, then, often imagined her hand in the act of being besought by Mr. Langham. Being a practical young woman, she had pictured this as happening (repeatedly) at sunset, by moonlight, in the depths of romantic forests or on the tops of romantic mountains. And some voice in her (some very practical voice) told her that it never should have happened in a kitchen.