She smiled as she slowly withdrew her hands.
“And you, my lord, when do you join the fugitives?”
“I?” He started. “Why, surely, madam, you know I have a post to keep! ’Tis one I would not desert if I might. My men, poor devils, look to me—”
“Ah,” she interrupted, “and have I no post to hold against the same enemy? How many servants would my grandmother retain if I set the example?”
“Diana!” The word escaped him in an uncontrollable impulse of tenderness. But he checked himself again on the very leap of passion. “Ah,” he murmured, “I shall have a brave daughter!”
She smiled, as a woman smiles at the hurt inflicted by the best-beloved.
There came from without the sound of voices, uplifted in the pleasant, artificial accents that mark the social meeting, and Lionel Ratcliffe ushered a couple of elderly visitors into the room with his elaborate, if ironic, courtesy.
“You are not the first, gentlemen, you perceive. Indeed, my worthy ancestress is somewhat behind-hand in her usual punctilio. But she has been engaged (with my assistance) in the dismissal of a saucy footman who has had the insolence to remark to her upon these red crosses with which it hath become the rage to adorn the doors of certain houses these days.”
Both the men laughed uneasily.
“Tut, tut!” cried the elder and stouter, and sniffed surreptitiously at his pomander box.