No; she would not go to George. To whom, then? The vision of Joan
Valentine came to her--of Joan as she had seen her yesterday,
strong, cheerful, self-reliant, bearing herself, in spite of
adversity, with a valiant jauntiness. Yes; she would go and see
Joan. She put on her hat and stole from the house.

Curiously enough, only a quarter of an hour before, R. Jones had
set out with exactly the same object in view.

* * *

At almost exactly the hour when Aline Peters set off to visit her
friend, Miss Valentine, three men sat in the cozy smoking-room of
Blandings Castle.

They were variously occupied. In the big chair nearest the door
the Honorable Frederick Threepwood--Freddie to pals--was reading.
Next to him sat a young man whose eyes, glittering through
rimless spectacles, were concentrated on the upturned faces of
several neat rows of playing cards--Rupert Baxter, Lord
Emsworth's invaluable secretary, had no vices, but he sometimes
relaxed his busy brain with a game of solitaire. Beyond Baxter, a
cigar in his mouth and a weak highball at his side, the Earl of
Emsworth took his ease.

The book the Honorable Freddie was reading was a small
paper-covered book. Its cover was decorated with a color scheme
in red, black and yellow, depicting a tense moment in the lives
of a man with a black beard, a man with a yellow beard, a man
without any beard at all, and a young woman who, at first sight,