"You three had better go," she said. "You have such a little time for holidays now; and I can always telegraph for you if you should be wanted."
Miranda bubbled into little sympathetic explosions.
"Oh, Millie, I'll stay, of course. These boys can go. But Joan will want some one."
Millie, however, would not hear of it.
"You're a brick, Miranda. But I have ordered the car for you all immediately after luncheon. Joan's in bed, and wants to see no one. She seems heartbroken. She will say nothing. I can't understand her."
There was only one at Rackham Park who did, and to him Millie Splay turned instinctively.
"I should like you to stay, if you will put up with us. I think Chichester feels at a loss, and he likes you very much."
"Of course I'll stay," replied Hillyard.
Mr. Albany Todd drifted away to the more congenial atmosphere of a dowager duchess's dower-house in the Highlands, where it is to be hoped that his conversational qualities were more brilliantly displayed than in the irreverent gaiety of Rackham. Millie Splay meant to keep Harry Luttrell too. She hoped against hope. This was the man for her Joan, and whether he was wasting his leave miserably in that melancholy house troubled her not one jot.
"It would be so welcome to me if you would put off your departure," she said. "I am sure there is some dreadful misunderstanding."