'Of course not. But did she mind? What did she say, eh?'
'She only said, "He got that out of a novel of Miss Broughton's."'
Filey looked a little dashed. 'No! Has Miss Broughton said it, too? Then there are more of them!' He glanced again at the Amazon. 'Horrible thought!'
'Don't be so unreasonable. She couldn't play golf in a long skirt and high heels!'
'Who wants a woman to play golf?'
Hermione gave him his tea with a smile. She knew with an absolute precision just how perfectly at that moment she herself was presenting the average man's picture of the ideal type of reposeful womanhood.
As Lord John and the two other men, his companions, came up the steps in the midst of a discussion—
'If you stop to argue, Mr. Farnborough,' said Lady John, holding out a cup, 'you won't have time for tea before you catch that train.'
'Oh, thank you!' He hastened to relieve her, while Hermione murmured regrets that he wasn't staying. 'Lady John didn't ask me,' he confided. As he saw in Hermione's face a project to intercede for him, he added, 'And now I've promised my mother—we've got a lot of people coming, and two men short!'
'Two men short! how horrible for her!' She said it half laughing, but her view of the reality of the dilemma was apparent in her letting the subject drop.