“Not for tiresome country roads. They should be got over as quickly as possible.”
“Well, we will cut through the beech-woods as we came.”
“Oh dear,” Alicia yawned, “how tired I am already of those tiresome beech-woods. I wish it were autumn and that the hunting had begun. Captain Archinard gives me glowing accounts, and promises me a lead for the first good run. We must fill the house with people then, Peter.”
“The house shall be filled to overflowing. Perhaps you would like some one now. Mrs. Laughton and her girls; you like them, don’t you?”
Alicia wrinkled up her charming nose.
“Can’t say I do. I’ve stopped with them too much perhaps. They bore me. I am afraid no one would come just now, everything is so gay in London. I wish I were there.”
Alicia was not there because the doctor had strongly advised country air and the simple inaction of country life. Alicia had lost her baby only three weeks after its birth—two months ago—and had herself been very ill.
“But I think I shall write to some people and ask them to take pity on me,” she added, as they walked slowly through the woods. “Sir John, and Mr. and Mrs. Damian, Gladys le Breton, and Lord Calverly.”
“Well!” Peter spoke in his usual tone of easy acquiescence.
Mary walked on a little ahead. What good did it do to trouble her brother uselessly by her impatient look? But how could Peter yield so placidly? Mary respected him too much to allow herself an evil thought of his wife; but Alicia was a person to be talked about. Mary did not doubt that she had been talked about already, and would be more so if she were not careful.