“I’ll go,” said Marmaduke, eagerly.
“No, no, Duke. You must not leave the table. I will send a servant.”
“I will fetch her here in half the time that any servant will. Poor Marian, why shouldnt she have her lunch? I shall be back in a jiffy.”
“What a restless, extraordinary creature he is!” said Lady Carbury, displeased, as Marmaduke hastily left the room. “The idea of a man leaving the table in that way!”
“I suspect he has his reasons,” said Elinor.
“I think it is a perfectly natural thing for him to do,” said Constance, pettishly. “I see nothing extraordinary in it.”
Marmaduke found Marian reading in the summer-house in the fruit garden. She looked at him in lazy surprise as he seated himself opposite to her at the table.
“This is the first chance I’ve had of talking to you privately since I came down,” he said. “I believe you have been keeping out of my way on purpose.”
“Well, I concluded that you wanted as many chances as possible of talking to some one else in private; so I gave you as many as I could.”
“Yes, you and the rest have been uncommonly considerate in that respect: thank you all awfully. But I mean to have it out with you, Miss Marian, now that I have caught you alone.”