"I do not Want to destroy your appetite, Mr. Brooks," Lady Sybil said, "but this is—if not a farewell feast, something like it."
He looked at her with sudden interest.
"You are going away?" he exclaimed.
"Very soon," she assented. "We were so comfortable at Enton, and the hunting has been so good, that we cut out one of our visits. Mamma developed a convenient attack of influenza. But the next one is very near now, and our host is almost tired of us."
Lord Arranmore was for a moment silent.
"You have made Enton," he said, "intolerable for a solitary man. When you go I go."
"I wish you could say whither instead of when," Lady Caroom answered. "How bored you would be at Redcliffe. It is really the most outlandish place we go to."
"Why ever do we accept, mamma?" Sybil asked. "Last year I nearly cried my eyes out, I was so dull. Not a man fit to talk to, or a horse fit to ride. The girls bicycle, and Lord Redcliffe breeds cattle and talks turnips."
"And they all drink port after dinner," Lady Caroom moaned; "but we have to go, dear. We must live rent free somewhere during these months to get through the season."
Sybil looked at Brooks with laughter in her eyes.