​"Half Irish," Beresford had corrected.

"I remember now," there was a marked solemnity in her voice, "a week before you were born, your poor dear mother was greatly frightened by a tramp who had managed to get into the garden."

"Then," Lord Drewitt had said, "Richard must not be blamed. Like Napoleon, he is clearly a man of destiny."

"But," said Edward Seymour, screwing up his face as was his wont when asking a question, "I don't see why being in the trenches should make Richard want to become a tramp."

"You wouldn't, my dear Teddy," Lord Drewitt had said softly. "You see it's an A1 question and you are a C3 man."

Mrs. Edward had flashed a vindictive look at Lord Drewitt, then with a swift change of expression she turned to Lady Drewitt.

"Perhaps now that Richard knows how—how it would pain you, Aunt Caroline, he won't——"

"Don't be a fool, Cecily," snapped Lady Drewitt; whereat Edward Seymour had looked across at his wife with a leer of triumph.

That night as they had walked away from Drewitt House, Beresford had explained more fully to Lord Drewitt what had led up to his decision to cut adrift from the old life.

"My dear Richard," he had said with a sigh of regret, "I wish I had the Aunt's courage and your convictions."

Beresford smiled at the thought of that evening. ​He paused to light his pipe. He looked about him, hoping to find somewhere a break in the clouds giving promise of fine weather—for the morrow. No; Nature's frown showed no sign of lifting. It was as if she had decided never to attempt the drying up of this drenched and dripping landscape.

He turned once more and faced the wind and rain. His thoughts returned to his family. He had always been something of a problem to them. As a standard by which to measure failure, he had been not without his uses. He had passed through Winchester and Oxford without attracting to himself particular attention, enviable or otherwise. He had missed his cricket "blue" through that miracle of misfortune, a glut of talent, and he had taken a moderately good degree. He had come down from Oxford and the clouds, loving sport, art, literature, and above all beauty.

Mrs. Edward Seymour had once remarked plaintively to Lady Drewitt that it seemed so odd that a man who had nearly got his cricket "blue" should be fond of roses and wall-papers, poetry and skylarks. "It seemed," she ventured to add, "not quite nice." Whereat Lady Drewitt had besought her not to be a fool; but to remember that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton. Mrs. Edward Seymour had gone away sorely puzzled as to her Aunt's exact meaning; but not daring to enquire.

Coming down from Oxford, Beresford had been shot unprotesting into the Foreign Office, which he ​had accepted as part of the enigma of life until that fateful August 4th, 1914, when he had enlisted.

That was four and a half years ago, and now, having thoroughly earned the disapproval of his aunt, he had turned his face to the open road, a vagabond; but a free man. The blue sky would be above him; he had pictured it all, the white flecks of cloud swimming across the sun day by day, and the winking of the stars by night. There would be the apple and the plum-blossom, the pear and the cherry. There would be the birds, the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep. Then there would be the voices of the haymakers, the throb of the mowing-machines and the rumble of the heavily laden wains, as they grumbled their way to the rick-yard. The night sounds, the sudden whirr of a frightened pheasant, the hoot of some marauding owl, the twitter of a dreaming thrush; he had realised them all, expected them all—everything but the rain.

He had foreseen rain, it is true, the storm, the flood even; but they had always presented themselves to his mind's eye with himself safely quartered in some comfortable old inn.

"Nature discourages eccentricity."

Nature was discouraging him by flooding the earth on the first day of his adventure.

"I wonder what Aunt Caroline would say if she saw me now?" he muttered.

He laughed aloud at the thought.

Suddenly he stopped, not only laughing, but ​walking, and stood staring in astonishment at a gate that lay a few yards back from the roadside.

In an instant Lady Drewitt, Nature, eccentricity and the weather were banished from his thoughts. Nothing that his imagination was capable of suggesting could have caused him more astonishment than what he saw perched upon this gate giving access to a wayside meadow. Had it been a griffin, a unicorn, or the Seven-Headed Beast of the Apocalypse, he would have accepted it without question as the natural phenomenon of an abnormal day.

It was not a griffin, a unicorn, or the Beast of the Apocalypse that he saw; but a girl perched jauntily upon the top bar of the roadside gate, meditatively smoking a cigarette. She seemed indifferent to the rain, indifferent to the wretchedness of her surroundings, indifferent to Beresford's presence, indifferent to everything—she was merely a spectator.

For some seconds he regarded her in astonishment. The trim, grey, tailor-made costume, knapsack, tweed hat with waterproof covering he mentally registered them all; but what struck him most was the girl's face. Nondescript but charming, was his later verdict; but now his whole attention was arrested by her eyes. Large and grey, with whites that were almost blue, and heavy dark lashes, they gazed at him gravely, wonderingly; but quite without any suggestion of curiosity.

For nearly a minute he stood staring at her in astonishment. Then suddenly realising the ​rudeness of his attitude, he slowly and reluctantly turned to the wind and continued his way.

"A rain-girl," he muttered. "I wonder if she knows that Nature discourages eccentricity?"

​

CHAPTER II "THE TWO DRAGONS" AND THE RAIN-GIRL

DINNER will be ready in ten minutes, sir."

The waiter led the way to a small table on the right-hand side of the fireplace, in which burned a large fire surmounted by a log that crackled and spat a cheerful welcome.

"Empty!" remarked Beresford as he looked round the dining-room.

"It's the weather, sir," explained the waiter in an apologetic tone, as he gave a push to the log with his boot; then, after a swift glance round to satisfy himself that everything was as it should be, he withdrew.

Beresford shivered. The day's wetting had chilled him. What a day it had been. "The Two Dragons" was a godsend.

As he warmed himself before the fire, he mentally reviewed the events of the day, and came to the conclusion that there had been only one event, the girl on the gate.

For the past two hours her eyes had entirely eclipsed that absurd little phrase that had so obsessed his mind earlier in the day. It had been a strange day, he mused, a day of greyness: grey sky, ​grey sheets of rain, a grey prospect before him, and then that girl's grey eyes. They had seemed to change everything. They were like grey fire, seeming to blot out the other greys, as the dawn makes the stars to pale.

It was to him a new experience to find a girl monopolising his thoughts. The habit of a life-time had been to place women somewhere between dances and croquet. He had flirted with them in a superficial way, they had amused him; but they had never bulked largely in his life. Tommy Knowles of "the House" had once said that there was little hope for a country composed of men such as Beresford, who placed runs before kisses, and saw more in a dropped goal than a glad eye.

He seemed to have had so little time for girls. There had been games to play, books to read, pictures to see, and such a host of other interests that women had been rather crowded out. Somehow they never seemed to strike an interesting note in conversation. It was invariably about the plays they had seen, the band that was playing, the quality of the floor upon which they were dancing, common friends, or else gush about George Bernard Shaw, or Maeterlinck.

He fell to wondering what Aunt Caroline or the Edward Seymours would have thought of her. They regarded him as mad because he preferred the open road to the Foreign Office; but if they were to see a girl sitting on a gate in the rain, smoking a cigarette with apparent enjoyment, they would in ​all probability question, not only her reason, but her sense of delicacy.

The Rain-Girl (as Beresford mentally called her) obviously possessed character; but why was she tramping alone upon an English high-road, particularly when the heavens were drenching the earth with cold and cheerless rain? It was a queer thing for a girl to do, queer beyond analysis or comprehension. What would she have done had he spoken to her? In all probability have snubbed him; yet surely two strangers might pass the time of day upon the highway, even though they were of opposite sexes.

It had been an absurd sort of day, Beresford decided, and the sooner it were blotted from his memory the better; still he would like to see her again. Then he fell to speculating as to which direction she had taken.

Would dinner never be ready? Again he shivered, in spite of the heat of the fire. He would be all right, he told himself, as soon as he had eaten something. That waiter was a liar. More than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since he had promised dinner in ten minutes. He rang the bell. A few seconds later the door opened.

"Will dinner be long?" he enquired from where he stood facing the fire.

"They tell me it is ready now."

He span round with automatic suddenness, and found himself gazing into the same grey eyes that, ​for the last two hours, seemed to have occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all else.

"The Rain-Girl!" The words seemed to come involuntarily. Then he added in confusion, "I—er—beg your pardon. I—I thought it was—I had just rung, I——" Then he lapsed into silence and stood staring.

"I quite understand," she said, with a smile of perfect self-possession, as she approached the fire.

Yes; it certainly was the Rain-Girl; but how changed. Her dusky hair, which grew low down on her forehead and temples, was daintily dressed, and she looked very slim and shapely in a simple gown of some nondescript colour between a brown and a grey, which clung in simple folds about her. As she stood holding out her hands to the warmth of the fire, he recovered from his surprise. Obviously the curious happenings of the day were not yet ended.

Deciding that it was embarrassing for two people to stand at the same fire without speaking, Beresford retired to his table just as the waiter entered with the soup. Seeing the Rain-Girl, the waiter hurried across to the table on the other side of the fireplace and withdrew the chair invitingly. She seated herself with a smile of acknowledgment.

She was evidently not inclined to be sociable, Beresford decided. Surely two people dining alone in the same inn might exchange a few common-places; but she seemed determined to discourage any attempt towards friendliness. All through the ​soup Beresford chafed at British insular prejudice. What good had the war done if it had not broken down this foolish barrier? Here were two people alone in an inn-parlour, yet they were doomed to dine at separate tables. He was piqued, too, at the girl's obvious indifference to his presence, a fact of which he had assured himself by surreptitious glances in her direction.

As the meal progressed, he became more and more incensed at her supremely unreasonable attitude. What right had she to consign him to a dull and tedious dinner? Surely the day had been a miserable enough affair without this totally unnecessary insistence of mid-Victorian prejudice and the segregation of the sexes. It was absurd, provincial, suburban, parochial, in fact it was most damnably irritating, he decided.

What would she do when the meal was over? Draw up to the fire, go to the smoking-room, or clear off to bed? Could he not do something to precipitate a crisis? But what? If he were a woman he might faint; but he could not call to mind ever having read of a hero of romance who fainted, even for the purpose of making the heroine's acquaintance. He might choke, be seized with a convulsion, develop signs of insanity. What would she do then, this self-possessed young woman? Ring for the waiter most likely.

Gradually there became engendered in his mind a dull resentment at her attitude of splendid isolation. She evidently preferred solitude, enjoyed it ​in fact. He would indulge her by going to the smoking-room as soon as he had finished. In spite of this decision, he continued to watch her covertly, noticing how little she ate. He himself was eating practically nothing; he had no appetite. Had they both caught a chill? What was the waiter thinking as he took away plates containing food little more than tasted? It was like a Charles Dana Gibson picture, but for the absence of the little cupid with an arrow fitted to his bow.

It was ridiculous.

Beresford pushed back his chair with some ostentation and walked towards the door. She had spoiled the soup, rendered insipid the fish and made detestably unpalatable the joint—in short she had spoiled everything. He would take coffee in the smoking-room, there was a large fire there and—it was strange how thoroughly chilled he was. Yes, he would clear out, perhaps she would breakfast early in the morning and take her departure before he was down. At the door he turned slightly to get a glimpse of her table. No, she had not even looked up.

He closed the door and, walking across to the smoking-room, threw himself into a comfortable chair by the roaring fire, rang for coffee and proceeded to light his pipe and smoke the Rain-Girl out of his thoughts.

Presently the waiter entered with the coffee, as Beresford judged by the click of crockery. The man placed a table in front of the fire on ​Beresford'sford's left; then, putting upon it the tray, he quietly withdrew.

Yes, coffee would be good on a night like this, Beresford decided as he turned to the tray, where, to his surprise, he found two cups.

"What the——" then he suddenly realised that his late companion at dinner, who was not a companion at all, was probably also taking coffee in the smoking-room. Here was a fine point of etiquette, he decided. There was nothing for it but to wait. He was curious to see if this linking together of their coffees would cause her to unbend. Fate was taking a hand in the affair.

It was obviously impossible to pour out his own coffee and leave her the remainder. Should he ring for the waiter? No, the coffee should act as master of the ceremonies and bridge the gulf between them. Placing the coffee-pot and the milk-jug on the hearth, he waited, substituting a cigarette for his briar, lest its rich, juicy note might prove unmusical to feminine ears. For ten minutes he waited. Had the waiter merely made a mistake in bringing two cups instead of one? Possibly at this very moment she was enjoying her coffee in the dining-room. After all perhaps there was only enough for one. Leaning forward, he picked up the coffee-pot, lifted the lid and peered in. It was full.

As he raised his eyes from the contemplation of the contents of the coffee-pot, it was to meet those of the Rain-Girl gazing quizzically down at him. ​He started back, nearly dropping the coffee-pot, and managed to scramble to his feet, coffee-pot in hand, conscious that he had flushed as if caught in some illicit act. This girl certainly had a curious habit of appearing at odd and dramatic moments.

"I was looking to see if it was coffee for one or coffee for two," he explained.

She looked at him gravely, obviously a little puzzled; then, catching sight of the two cups upon the tray, she smiled.

"How stupid of him," she said, "and you've waited?" Her eyebrows were lifted in interrogation.

"I was just investigating," said Beresford, feeling more at ease now that he was able to explain. "It was a sort of game. If there was enough only for one, I would ignore the second cup; if for two, I would wait."

She smiled again and sank into the chair on the opposite side of the fire, holding out her hands to the blaze.

Beresford stood looking down at her, the coffee-pot still in his hand.

She seemed entirely to have forgotten his presence. She certainly was a most amazing creature, he decided; but that was no reason why he should be done out of his coffee.

"Do you take it black or with milk?" he enquired in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I'm so sorry," she cried, looking at him with a start, "I—I——"