“Besides, we shall be all right in the trap,” said his wife. “Laura, why not come with us, if you are in a hurry to get back? We could manage to make room for you and Ethel, and your horses could be led.”
“Thanks; but I don’t think we ought to desert our escort in that way,” she answered. The plan suggested in no wise fell in with her views—nor, we may add, with those of Ethel.
“It’ll be outrageously shabby of you if you do, and in fact we shan’t allow it,” said Claverton.
“The damned Britishers are made of salt—afraid of a little rain,” growled Thorman, in a low tone, at the other side of the room.
Jeffreys, to whom the remark was addressed, and who had reasons of his own for abhorring the “imported” element, acquiesced in the sneer, and just then they were summoned to breakfast. It cleared in the afternoon with startling suddenness, and as the equestrians started for home, the blue sky was without a cloud.
“This is lovely,” exclaimed Ethel, as they cantered along; “but,”—and the bright laughing face clouded—“isn’t it a nuisance? Will Jeffreys is going back with us.”
“What, all the way?” said Claverton. “I thought we were going to choke him off at Van Rooyen’s, where we picked him up.”
“No such luck. He’s going back to Seringa Vale; at least, so Mr Armitage says.”
“Oh, that may be only Jack’s chaff; but—”
He checked himself as something seemed to strike him. “Bosh!” he thought, “Jack only sees that she rather hates the bullet-headed fool, and is trying to take a rise out of her.” Then aloud: “That fellow Jack is a confounded nuisance at times, and yet on the whole I think he’s an acquisition.”