The Marquis glanced at a silver-framed calendar which stood upon the table. He had glanced at it about a hundred times during the last few days.
"A little country air," he confessed, "will be very agreeable. I think perhaps, too," he went on, "that I am inclined to be weary of London. It is more of a city, after all, isn't it, for the bourgeois rich than for a penniless Marquis. Where did you get your mount from, dear?"
"Charlie lent me a hack," she replied. "I've had a perfectly delightful ride."
"You have not yet arrived, I suppose," her father went on, "at any fixed matrimonial intentions with regard to Charlie?"
She shook her head a little dejectedly.
"It's so hard," she confessed. "I am dying to say 'yes,' especially, somehow, during the last few days, but somehow I can't. I think it must be his fault," she added resentfully. "He doesn't ask me properly."
"You'll find some one will be taking him off your hands before long," her father warned her. "Personally, I have no objection to find with the alliance."
"Of course," Letitia complained, "it's very clear what you are thinking of! You want your bachelor apartments in the Albany again, and the gay life. I really feel that it is my duty to remain a spinster and look after you."
The Marquis smiled. Once more his eyes glanced towards the calendar.
"Better ask Charlie down to Mandeleys and settle it with him there," he suggested.