"I don't know that he particularly wishes it, but he has brought Lord Annerley home with him to talk over the Oadby Common matter, so you had better come."
Lord Annerley was the eldest son of a neighbouring landowner between whom and myself, as the agent of Sir Francis Devereux, there had arisen a friendly dispute as to the right of way over a certain common, and I knew at once that I must not miss the opportunity of meeting him.
"Very good, Miss Devereux," I answered, "I will go home and change my things at once."
"Without speaking to me?"
I turned abruptly round. Lady Olive had come softly over the smooth turf, and was looking up into my face with a mischievous smile.
"How cross you both look!" she exclaimed; "have you been quarrelling?"
"Quarrelling! Scarcely," I answered, laughing lightly. "Miss Devereux and I have no subject in common which we should be likely to discuss, far less to quarrel about. Wherever did you get such beautiful chrysanthemums, Lady Olive?"
She buried her piquant little face in the mass of white and bronze blooms, and then divided them.
"From the south garden. Aren't they lovely! See, Mr. Arbuthnot, I want you to take half of them to your sister if you don't mind. I don't think you have any cut yet, and the colours of these are so exquisite. Which do you like the better, Maud, the white or the bronze?"
"The white, of course," she answered, scarcely looking at them. "I don't care for the other colour at all."