CHAPTER II
THE SNUB FOR BORROWDEAN
Berenice sat at one of the small round tables in the courtyard, finishing her morning coffee. Sir Leslie sat upon the steps by her side. It was one of those brilliant mornings in early September, when the sunlight seems to find its way everywhere. Even here, surrounded by the pile of worn grey stone buildings, which threw shadows everywhere, it had penetrated. A long shaft of soft, warm light stretched across the cobbles to their feet. Berenice, slim and elegant, fresh as the morning itself, glanced up at her companion with a smile.
"Clara," she remarked, "does not like to be kept waiting."
"She is not down yet," he answered, "and there is something I want to say to you."
Her delicate eyebrows were a trifle uplifted.
"Do you think that you had better?" she asked.
"I am a man," he said, "and things are known to me which a woman would scarcely discover. Do you think that it is quite fair to send Lady Redford out motoring with Mrs. Mannering?"
"Why not?"
"Lady Redford is, of course, ignorant of Mrs. Mannering's antecedents. What you may do yourself concerns no one. You make your own social laws, and you have a right to. But I do not think that even you have a right to pass Blanche Phillimore on to your friends, even under the shelter of Mannering's name."