“My weakness lies the other way,” he confessed, “and my sympathy is with those who do not fear to make their own laws.”
She held out her hand, white and spectral in the momentary gloom. At the other end of the lawn, Francis and Margaret were disembarking from the punt.
“Does it sound too shockingly obvious,” she murmured, “if I say that I want to make you my law?”
CHAPTER XXXIII
It would have puzzled anybody, except, perhaps, Lady Cynthia herself, to have detected the slightest alteration in Sir Timothy's demeanour during the following day, when he made fitful appearances at The Sanctuary, or at the dinner which was served a little earlier than usual, before his final departure for the scene of the festivities. Once he paused in the act of helping himself to some dish and listened for a moment to the sound of voices in the hall, and when a taxicab drove up he set down his glass and again betrayed some interest.
“The maid with my frock, thank heavens!” Lady Cynthia announced, glancing out of the window. “My last anxiety is removed. I am looking forward now to a wonderful night.”
“You may very easily be disappointed,” her host warned her. “My entertainments appeal more, as a rule, to men.”
“Why don't you be thoroughly original and issue no invitations to women at all?” Margaret enquired.
“For the same reason that you adorn your rooms and the dinner-table with flowers,” he answered. “One needs them—as a relief. Apart from that, I am really proud of my dancing-room, and there again, you see, your sex is necessary.”