"Our station in life, I suppose. At least they seemed to bother Grace."
"Poor Grace! I've always bothered her." She paused, removing her gloves reflectively and laying her long fine hands on his shoulders as she stood behind him. "Then you don't believe in Ashford?" Feeling his slight start, she drew away her hands and raised them to detach her veil.
"What makes you think I don't believe in Ashford?" he asked.
"I asked out of curiosity. I wondered whether you had decided anything."
"No, and I don't mean to for a week. I'm dead beat, and I want to bring a fresh mind to the question. There is hardly one appointment I'm sure of except, of course, Fleetwood's."
She turned away from him, smoothing her hair in the mirror above the mantelpiece. "You're sure of that?" she asked after a moment.
"Of George Fleetwood? And poor Grace thinks you are deep in my counsels! I am as sure of re-appointing Fleetwood as I am that I have just been re-elected myself. I've never made any secret of the fact that if they wanted me back they must have him, too."
"You are tremendously generous!" she murmured.
"Generous? What a strange word to use! Fleetwood is my trump card—the one man I can count on to carry out my ideas through thick and thin."
She mused on this, smiling a little. "That's why I call you generous—when I remember how you disliked him two years ago!"