This was when they heard the loud cranking of a motor-car, emphasized by a loose mud-guard, approaching and drawing up outside the south wing. Once more the door of the saloon-bar, after a tentative rattle at its knob, was opened. Martin motioned Jenny (confound this sense of guilt!) to go.out by the second-parlour door to the road.
"Hoy there!" called a male voice. "Hullo!"
Footsteps scuffled, hesitated, tramped through one room and then through two. In the doorway, inquiringly, appeared a tallish young man in sports coat flannels, and with a blue tie skewered under one wing of his soft collar.
His mop of dark-blond hair was uncombed and unruly. He was on the lean and muscular side, carrying himself well. But first of all you noticed the quality of good-humour, which was
so genome that it flowed from him and made friends immediately. His grey eyes, his bump of a chin, made it a strong face as well as a good-humoured face.
"Well," he said, "are you the enemy?"
"Yes." Martin could not help srniling back. "But not a personal enemy, if you follow me."
"Ah. That's good. Well, what's up?"
Selecting a wicker chair by the door into the first-parlour, the newcomer dropped into it and threw one leg over its arm. He began to fill a pipe from an oilskin pouch.
There was a long silence.