The Princess was attempting a new and very complicated form of patience. Forrest was watching her. Their host was making an attempt to read the newspaper.
"In five minutes," the Princess declared, "I shall have achieved the impossible. This time I am quite sure that I am going to do it."
A breathless silence followed her announcement. The Princess, looking up in surprise, found that the eyes of her two companions were fixed not upon her but upon the door. She laid down her cards and turned her head. It was Jeanne who stood there, her hair tossed and blown by the wind, her face ashen white.
"What is the matter, child?" the Princess demanded.
Jeanne came a little way into the room.
"There were two men," she faltered, "talking in the shrubbery close to where I was sitting behind the hollyhocks. I could not understand all that they said, but they are coming here. They were speaking of Lord Ronald."
"Go on," Forrest muttered, leaning forward with dilated eyes.
"They spoke as though something might have happened to him here," the girl whispered. "Oh! it is too horrible, this! What do you think that they meant?"
She looked at the three people who confronted her. There was nothing reassuring in the faces of the two men. The Princess leaned back in her chair and laughed.
"My dear child," she said, "you have been asleep and dreamed these foolish things; or if not, these yokels to whom you have been listening are mad. What harm do you suppose could come to Lord Ronald here?"