"No," she said at length, "I haven't telephoned. I haven't done a thing about it, and what's more, Lionel, I don't believe I will."
"Kate! Do you mean that?"
It was her turn to be startled. She had expected consternation, at the very least disapproval. Lionel's tone was one of joyous relief.
"By Jove, Kate, if that's the way you feel, then I know I'm right. I've been turning it over in my mind ever since this morning," he went on eagerly, "and when I heard the servants had all bolted I said to myself: 'Now's the chance to show that old blighter Baxter that an English Johnny who dates back to the Conqueror—and all that rot—is just as good, when it comes to the scratch, as a self-made American who's only just invented himself and thinks he's the only Johnny on earth that ever did an honest day's work.'"
As he paused for breath his face became suddenly luminous with a new idea. "I say! This must be what the old boy calls 'chucking us into a pond.'"
"Lionel! You don't mean—you can't mean that he dismissed the servants himself?"
"Who? Old Baxter? Not he! He doesn't know a thing about it, that I'll swear to, but——"
"But what?"
Lionel hesitated, then went on quickly. "I got a tip yesterday, and if it wasn't straight from the horse's mouth it was jolly well the next thing to it."
"Well?"