"If Mrs. De Burgho Keane wasn't coming to tea to-morrow," said Gheena, walking stiffly, with footsore feet, "I'd go to look at the kennels, Darby. There are about ten other things called hounds about, and they could be collected late when they heard from the Master."
"If he vetoes it," said Darby, "thinking we'll spoil his foxes by making them run too slow, we'll hunt something, Gheena, if it's only a herring. Crabbit is outside thinking of fighting with Grandjer."
Crabbit was disputing the entrance to a rat-hole, every hair on his red body bristling, with Grandjer unabashed, gurgling out defiance beside him.
Crabbit, removing himself with reluctance, got into the long, low two-seater and brooded in the wrongs of life. Gheena limped to Darby's car.
"I saw Mrs. Weston with Keefe out on the coast road," said Basil, "and the Ford appeared to be stuck. They were at her for half an hour."
"And—you never helped her?" Gheena swung round.
"Oh, well, I saw them from Dunleep Hill, you see," he said apologetically. "I was just looking down at the road, and saw. One watches the sea these days," he added, hesitating a little.
"What she sees in that pink peony, Keefe?" said Darby. "A smart little woman."
Basil said "Taking" absently. "I'm dining there to-night," he went on, "to hold cards. Not to play Bridge, because only two of us know how, and if we get against the other two, they upset us so much we invariably lose, and if we cut them they upset us still more, and I get to bed with my brain very like a piano in a damp climate. The old Professor makes the fourth."
"To-night, then, I make a fifth," said Gheena. "Crabbit and I are walking over at nine. What! It's not safe out so late alone, Mr. Stafford? Do crabs and jelly-fish attack one, or coastguards looking out for nothing on earth?"