"Hanoverian or Platt?" asked Stafford amiably. "I should like to know which you'd understand best before I answer. When I was at Berlin I practised both."
Then the mocking look died out of his face, which reddened slowly.
Gheena escaped from the heat to the doorstep. It was one of those autumn nights which are as oppressive as June with none of its lightness. The air was murkily hot, and a fog was stealing into the hollows; through the grey haze one could hear the sea boom at the end of the park.
Everyone began to put up their knitting. The O'Haras' wagonette, poised haughtily high over a dejected grey cob, came round to the door, the weary beast walking with the bitter certainty of seven miles to go and a feed of hay at its end.
Miss O'Toole, trailing her ball of wool, came stealthily towards Gheena.
"I should ... watch him," she breathed fiercely. "Wireless here, and a coast for submarines, and—what is he doing?"
Gheena said "Drains" a little faintly.
Miss O'Toole compared drains to trenches with a sort of disdain.
"Young—strong—active. Blurts out he's been to Berlin and blushes over it. It's a place to watch," gulped Miss O'Toole dramatically.
Several exclamations, coupled with seven stumbles, heralded the approach of Basil Stafford, who had spun a cocoon of wool about his legs, and was cursing volubly in discreet undertone. His endeavour to get unwound involving him more securely still, he demanded tartly why Miss O'Toole played Fair Rosamund on the doorsteps; and, of course, if she could take it off in a second he would not cut the stuff, but——