"Nor does daddy; but he very often has got to. What do you and Cousin Edward talk about? I shall call him Cousin Edward at once, I think, to show him that I know. Or is that forward and tropical of me?"
Lind approached swiftly across the grass.
"Mrs. Hancock is waiting, miss," he said to Elizabeth. "She thinks you can't have heard the gong out here."
Elizabeth gave him a ravishing smile.
"Oh, I heard it beautifully!" she said. "Say I'm coming."
"I think Mrs. Hancock expects you at once, miss," said Lind, quite unsoftened, and continuing to stand firmly there until Elizabeth should move.
Under these circumstances it was impossible to continue anything resembling an intimate conversation, and Elizabeth rose just as Mrs. Hancock herself came out on to the gravel walk below the drawing-room window. She had been waiting at least three minutes—a thing to which she was wholly unaccustomed except when going by train. Then, for the sake of the corner seat facing the engine, she cheerfully waited twenty.
Elizabeth was quite unconscious of any severity of scrutiny on the part of her aunt as she ran across the lawn and jumped over a flower-bed, nor did she detect the slightest intention of sarcasm in Mrs. Hancock's greeting.
"Arc you nearly ready, Elizabeth?" she asked. "If so the car has been waiting some time."
"I'm quite ready, Aunt Julia," she said, "and I am so looking forward to my drive."