“I trust she is, too; but I haven’t seen her since last night.”
“No?” put in the colonel, waiting eagerly for further information.
“The fact is,” Lord Teignmouth went on, in a confidential tone, “girls are never of the same mind two days together. Yesterday morning Gwen was enchanted with Teignmouth, and declared she would give up all her engagements and stay here for the autumn; in the evening, at dinner, she suddenly announced that she was bored to death, and should leave by the first train in the morning.”
“And this morning she changed her mind for the third time, I presume?”
“Not a bit of it! I thought she would, of course, and quite expected to see her at breakfast; but when, on her not presenting herself, I made inquiries, I found that she had left Teignmouth by the first train.”
Colonel Dacre felt himself turn pale, but managed to say, with tolerable composure:
“I am sorry for that, as she was kind enough to lend me a book the other day, and I have not had the opportunity of returning it. But perhaps you will kindly give me her address, and then I can send it by post.”
“Her address. Let me see,” said the earl, with provoking deliberation. “I know it is somewhere in the North.”
“I am afraid that is rather vague.”
“I am afraid it is,” he answered, with his frank laugh. “But I have such a confoundedly bad memory. Pauline would remember, I dare say. She is generally my prompter. Supposing you go and ask her yourself?”