“That old beldame! Well, you can choose between Thornby and Sharsley. I won’t have any half measures—you understand that?”
“Am I to be mistress of the house?” she asked hardily. “I have an aunt, I believe?”
“You have very much an aunt—she’d make two—but she will move into her own flat. You look as if you could hold your own, and sit at the head of a table, and square on a horse.”
“I daresay I can soon learn English ways, and I’m sure I could ride—but I don’t like leaving mother.”
“I daresay not! You don’t know what is good for you—and you can’t well bring her along, can you? It must be one of us, or the other—Glyn or Blagdon!”
“Yes, I know,” and Cara rose, and walked slowly over to the window, and looked out. She was weighing the vital question, ‘father or mother’? As she stood irresolute, her eyes fell upon a splendid motor drawn up below the hotel—le dernier mot of luxury, and extravagance.
“That’s my car,” announced her father, who had followed, and was now looking over her shoulder. “If you decide on me, we will go off this evening, and I must give the chauffeur instructions about getting to Dover. You and I will go straight to Paris, and there you can rig yourself out before we go home—and the sooner we make a start the better.”
“Do you really mean, that we are to leave here to-day?” stammered Cara; who had been thinking of debating the matter, and making up her mind, at leisure.
Cara turned pale and then red.