“Very well, then, if she comes, or any fuss is made in the house, I will hop home, somehow, Colonel Dacre. There will be an astonishing story abroad to-morrow if Mrs. Whittaker is taken into our confidence——”
“But how is this to be avoided?” he interrupted.
“Very easily indeed. Lady Teignmouth will come to fetch me presently, and how should your servants know that we did not arrive together?”
“You forget that we shall have to account for Doctor Thurlow’s sudden visit.”
“I don’t see any need for that. You are not surely bound to keep your servants au courant as to all your movements.”
“That is about the last thing I should think of as a rule. I trouble myself very little about what they think; but I am naturally sensitive for you, Lady Gwendolyn.”
“If that is the case, you must see that my proposition is a good one. The servants are less likely to talk if they have nothing to talk about.”
“You don’t do justice to their inventive faculties, Lady Gwendolyn.”
“I don’t profess to understand them much,” she answered, with the hauteur of a true patrician. “I always hear that they are very unsatisfactory people; but I am sufficiently fortunate, I suppose, for I don’t often change my maids.”
“And I never change mine,” he said, laughing. “I always find the same faces here when I return from my travels. But are you quite determined to banish Mrs. Whittaker, Lady Gwendolyn?”