"Well, you all sound as if you were going to enjoy yourselves," she said, at last breaking her silence. "Have you made any plans for me?"
"You always like the garden, don't you, Bernadette?" Godfrey's tone was propitiatory.
"Oh, you must play tennis this year—and there'll be the new car!" said Judith.
"Among other things, you're going to play golf with me. You promised! The links are only about eight miles off. We can motor over and make a jolly long day of it." Arthur's sentence would have gained significance by the addition of one more word—"together."
"I see you've settled it all among you," she said. "But aren't you forgetting our guest? While you and I are doing all this, what's to become of Sir Oliver?"
Arthur looked round the table with brows raised and a gaily impudent smile. He felt pretty safe of the sympathy of two of his audience; he was confident that the third would pardon his presumption because of the hint that lay beneath it—the hint that anything which interfered with long days together would be unwelcome.
"For my part, I can't think what you want with your old Sir Oliver at all," he said.
His speech came as a cap to the situation, a savoury titbit for her ironical humour. She looked at him for a moment with eyes that sparkled maliciously; then she broke into low long laughter. She seemed unable to stop or control it. She sat and laughed at all of them—and most of all at Cousin Arthur. He—they—it—all too absurd!
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she gasped at last, for their faces began to grow astonished. "But it strikes me as very funny. If he could hear you! Because he thinks a good deal of himself, you know—my old Sir Oliver!"