“It sounds delightful,” Jacob replied enthusiastically. “Right up in Scotland you say? To tell you the truth, I was just wondering whether I couldn’t drop out of things quietly for a week or so.”
“It will be absolutely the end of us,” she declared, smiling out of her very blue eyes. “Maurice has been a perfect brute to me lately, apart from his flirtation with Miss Bultiwell, and I have almost left off loving him. I know we shall both fall. I’m so affectionate,” she sighed.
Jacob felt suddenly soothed. Lady Mary was looking very attractive and her eyes were full of challenge.
“But tell me,” he asked, “isn’t it very early for you to leave town?”
She nodded.
“To tell you the truth,” she confided, “dad seems to have got into terrible disgrace with all his relatives lately. Something to do with a money scheme, I think, in which they were all interested, and in which he seems to have done better than they did.”
“I quite understand,” Jacob murmured. “I think this temporary isolation is an excellent idea of your father’s. Sort of place, I suppose, where you get a post once a week and no telegrams.”
“You won’t mind?”
“Not I!”