At the evening meal, called supper by Hiram, Lionel did not appear, to the keen disappointment of Kate, who had descended into the kitchen in the loneliness of the late afternoon and prepared a crême renversée for his especial benefit.
It was late dusk when Fitz-Brown returned, by the golf course, from a ten-mile ramble over Ippingford downs. All his rancor, jealousy, if you will, had disappeared. He had clarified his mind by a physical process, a process at once primitively simple and profoundly scientific. For, if it is true that a physical ailment may be healed by a mental process, it is equally true that a mental ailment can be cured by a physical process. All Lionel did was to walk and walk and walk and allow the fresh summer wind, bounding over miles of gorse and heather, to sweep the fog from his brain. So that, by the time he emerged upon the Millbrook golf course he was able to see himself quite clearly and his self-appraisement was not flattering. He stood on the top of a high bunker and took a long breath as he delivered this ultimatum: "I'm a beastly ass," he said to himself. "Kate would be a fool to marry a duffer like me."
He broke off suddenly as he caught sight of the countess, bareheaded and clad in a dinner gown, putting pensively in the twilight.
Kate had already caught a glimpse of him as his tall figure stood for an instant silhouetted against the fading sky, and, divining his intention to take her by surprise, she addressed herself to the business of putting with convincing absorption.
As the ball for a breathless moment hesitated at the rim of the cup, then, Curtius-like, plunged into the dark abyss, a cheery "Bravo! Kate!" directly behind her caused a genuine start as perfect as any imitation she could have given.
"Gad! How you startled me!" There was an alchemy in Kate's personality that transmuted the sounding brass of profanity into the gold of pure speech. She swung round as she spoke.
"Sorry, old girl," said Lionel, "it's not like you to be so jumpy. I say, that was a ripping putt, almost in the dark, too."
Kate laughed. "That's just it. I couldn't see to miss it."
"Couldn't see to miss it?" mused Lionel; then brightening suddenly, "I say, that's rather good!" he laughed for sheer delight at having seen the point so quickly.
"Good boy!" said Kate, patting him on the back. "You're improving."