"Ah, ha! very charmed, Mr. Bines and Miss Bines; it is of a long time that we are not encountered."
He was radiant; they had never before seen him thus. Mrs. Higbee hovered near him with an air of proud ownership. Pretty Millie Higbee posed gracefully at her side.
"This your carriage?" asked Higbee; "I must telephone for one myself. Going to the Mayson? So are we. See you again to-night. We're off for Bar Harbour early to-morrow."
"Looks as if there were something doing there," said Percival, as they drove off the wharf.
"Of course, stupid!" said his sister; "that's plain; only it isn't doing, it's already done. Isn't it funny, ma?"
"For a French person," observed Mrs. Bines, guardedly, "I always liked the baron."
"Of course," said her son, to Mauburn's mystification, "and the noblest men on this earth have to wear 'em."
The surmise regarding the Baron de Palliac and Millie Higbee proved to be correct. Percival came upon Higbee in the meditative enjoyment of his after-dinner cigar, out on the broad piazza.
"I s'pose you're on," he began; "the girl's engaged to that Frenchy."
"I congratulate him," said Percival, heartily.