She sighed. Her slightly tired blue eyes seemed to be looking through the little cloud of cigarette smoke to the confines of the room.
"A magnificent age for a man," she murmured, "but a little ghastly for a woman. I was thirty-nine last birthday. Never mind, one has the present. So here are you, in the prime of life, with an immense fortune and no responsibilities. If Disraeli had been alive, he would have written a novel about you. There is so much which you could do, so much in which you could fail. Will you become just a man about town here, make friends partly in Bohemia and partly amongst some of us, endow a theatre and marry the first chorus girl who is too clever for you? Or—"
"I am more interested in the 'or,'" he declared rashly.
She turned her eyes slightly without moving her head, and knocked the ash from her cigarette into her plate.
"Let us go," she said, a little abruptly. "I am tired of talking here. If you really wish to know, you can accept the invitation which I shall send you presently, and come to Scotland."
CHAPTER XVI
Letitia and her escort pulled up their horses at the top of Rotten Row. Letitia was a little out of breath, but her colour was delightful, and the slight disarrangement of her tightly coiled brown hair most becoming.
"It was dear of you, Charlie, to think of lending me a hack," she declared. "I haven't enjoyed a gallop so much for ages. When we get down to Mandeleys I am going to raid Bailey's stables. He always has some young horses."
"Want schooling a bit before they're fit to ride," Grantham observed.