"I daresay you could," she replied. "You might get your man—tiger—how do you call him?—to learn it. It's capable of comprehension to the lowest intellect," she added crisply.
"Oh, come, Lady Grantham," he replied, "you don't think so badly of me as that, do you?"
Lady Grantham was seized with a momentary desire to run her parasol through his body, provided it could be done languidly and without effort. Her daughter had come up, and sat down in a low chair by her. Featherstone was devoting the whole of his great mind to the end of his moustache.
"Nora," she said, quietly, "this little man must be taken away. I can't quite manage him. Tell him to go and play about."
"Dear mother," she replied, "bear him a little longer. He can't play about by himself."
Lady Grantham got gently up from her chair, and thrust an exquisite little silver paper-knife between the leaves of her book.
"I think I will ask you to take my chair across to that tree opposite," she said to him, without looking at him.
He followed her, dragging the chair after him. Halfway across the lawn they met a footman bringing tea down into the ground.
"Take the chair," she said. Then she turned to her little man. "Many thanks. I won't detain you," she said, with a sweet smile. "So good of you to have come here this afternoon."
Featherstone was impenetrable. He lounged back, if so small a thing can be said to lounge, and sat down again by Miss Grantham.