"Which? Who?" asked Frank, looking up as from a dream.
"The car, sir."
Frank rose, and walked downstairs abstractedly. Bowie kept close to his side.
"Ye'll pardon me, sir," said he in a low voice; "but I see how it is,— the more blessing for you. Ye'll be pleased, I trust, to take more care of this jewel than others have of that one: or—"
"Or you'll shoot me yourself, Bowie?" said Frank, half amused, half awed, too, by the stern tone of the guardsman. "I'll give you leave to do it if I deserve it"
"It's no my duty, either as a soldier or as a valet. And, indeed, I've that opeenion of you, sir, that I don't think it'll need to be any one's else's duty either."
And so did Mr. Bowie signify his approbation of the new family romance, and went off to assist Mrs. Clara in getting the trunks down stairs.
Clara was in high dudgeon. She had not yet completed her flirtation with Mr. Bowie, and felt it hard to have her one amusement in life snatched out of her hard-worked hands.
"I'm sure I don't know why we're moving. I don't believe it's business. Some of his tantrums, I daresay. I heard her walking up and down the room all last night, I'll swear. Neither she nor Miss Valencia have been to bed. He'll kill her at last, the brute!"
"It's no concern of either of us, that. Have ye got another trunk to bring down?"