'How do you know?' demanded Filey, in the pause.
'Oh, wherever there are two or three gathered together talking politics and "the coming man"—who has such a frightful lot in him that very little ever comes out—it's sure to be Geoffrey Stonor they mean, isn't it, Joey?'
'Perhaps,' said her father, dryly, 'you'll just mention that to him at dinner to-night.'
'What!' said Farnborough, with a keen look in his eyes. 'You don't mean he's coming here!'
Sophia, too, had looked round at her host with frank interest.
'Comin' to play golf?'
'Well, he mayn't get here in time for a round to-night, but we're rather expecting him by this four-thirty.'
'What fun!' Lady Sophia's long face had brightened.
'May I stay over till the next train?' Farnborough was whispering to Lady John as he went round to her on the pretext of more cream. 'Thank you—then I won't go till the six forty-two.'
'I didn't know,' Lady Sophia was observing in her somewhat crude way, 'that you knew Geoffrey as well as all that.'