"Oh, cut that!" he mutters, just loud enough to reach the duke.
Mr. Lisle looks round with his glass in his hand.
"I must find a spot for my sketch," he says.
"All right, presently," says Yorke. "Pleasure first always, as the man said when he killed the tax collector. Miss Lisle have you sworn never to drink more than one glass of champagne?"
But Leslie shakes her head, and declines the offered bottle, and her appetite is soon appeased.
"Shall we leave these gourmands, and find a particularly picturesque study for your father, Miss Lisle?" suggests Yorke; "that is if he is bent on sketch——."
He stops suddenly, for a woman's laugh has risen from the green slope beneath them. It is not an unmusical laugh, but it is unpleasantly loud and bold, and the others start slightly.
"That is the other party," says Leslie.
"It is to be hoped that they are not coming up here. If they should, you will have an opportunity of seeing how I look when I scowl, Miss Lisle," he says.
Leslie gets up and goes to the battlements.