“Well,” began Lady Kesters, as the door closed, “I suppose you have seen him?”
“I have very much seen him,” replied her brother, who had thrown himself into a chair; “I did a sprint across the park, because I know your ladyship cannot bear to be kept waiting. Everything must be done to the minute in this establishment.”
“Yes,” she agreed; “and you come from a country where time is no object—everything is for ‘To-morrow.’ Now, tell me about Uncle Richard. Was he furious?”
“No; I believe I would have got off better if he had been in a rage. He received me in a ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ frame of mind, spoke as deliberately as if he had written his speech, and learnt it by heart; he meant every word he said.”
“I doubt it,” said his sister, who had been filling the teapot, and now closed the lid with a decisive snap. “Let me hear all you can remember.”
“He said he had done his best for me since I was a kid—his only brother’s son and his heir,—that he had sent me to Eton——”
“As if you didn’t know that!” she interrupted.
“Engineered me into the Service——”
“Yes, yes, yes!” with a wave of her hand. “Tell me something new.”
“He says that he is sick of me and my failures—is that new?”