"'Ere's a lady wants yer."
This was quite true. Miss French had not put it so bluntly, but it was not her fault that the messenger she had selected knew a footman when he saw one.
Major Anthony Lyveden thanked his informant with a smile. Had it been Caliban himself that had growled the message, the smile would have been as ready. Such a summons lost nothing in the telling.
George received the intimation that his colleague would be back in a minute apathetically. He was yet in some dudgeon. Beyond heaving a sigh charged with the resignation of a martyr who remembers that he has left his gloves in the torture-chamber, he evinced no interest at all.
Anthony crossed the turf to where Miss French sat smiling in a brown laudaulette, and touched his hat. Appearances had to be kept up. Valerie inclined her head gravely enough, but the look with which she honoured his action was not of this world. Anthony felt astoundingly rich.
"How are you?" he asked anxiously.
"Perfectly all right."
"Sure?"
Valerie nodded, smiling.
"I wasn't even tired the next day," she said. "Were your arms very stiff?"