“Very thoughtful and kind of Mr. Pratt, I am sure,” the Marchioness echoed graciously.
Jacob was never quite sure as to the meaning of that day, on which he and Lady Mary were left almost entirely alone, and the others, starting for an excursion soon after breakfast, did not return until an hour before dinner. They played tennis, bathed, played tennis again, lounged in a wonderful corner of a many-hundred-year-old garden, and afterwards sailed for a couple of hours in a little skiff which Lady Mary managed with the utmost skill. Sunburnt, tired, but completely happy, Jacob watched the returning carriages with scarcely an atom of apprehension.
“I think,” he declared, “that this has been one of the happiest days of my life.”
“That is a great deal to say, Mr. Pratt,” said Lady Mary.
She seemed suddenly to have lost her high spirits. He looked at her almost in surprise. A queer little impulse of jealousy crept into his brain.
“You are tired,” he said,—“or is it that you are thinking of some one else?”
She shook her head.
“I felt a little shiver,” she confided. “I don’t know why. I loathe those two men father has here, and I have an idea, somehow, that they don’t like you.”
“I have more than an idea about that,” he answered half lightly. “I believe they’d murder me if they could. You’ll protect me, won’t you, Lady Mary?”
“I will,” she answered quite gravely.