"No, thank you, I won't sit down. I didn't mean to stay but half a minute ... though I'm afraid Greta may think, even now, that I still don't understand that her time belongs to you."
"But we are not such slave drivers!" The little lady shook her diamond ear-rings. Greta could certainly take any day off to be with her friend, and every day, she of course had several hours at her disposal, whenever she wished.
Miss von Schwarzenberg, in the act of descending the stairs, had paused the fraction of a second. "Oh, there you are!" she threw over the banisters toward Lady McIntyre.
It occurred to Napier that the girl standing between him and Julian was a little uneasy at being found so far this side of the firs.
"Yes," Lady McIntyre said, "I was just arranging with Miss Ellis that she must stay to luncheon."
"And I was just going to ask if you'd consent to our plan," Greta said as she joined the group. "We thought of lunching at the inn."
At sight of the smile on Miss von Schwarzenberg's face—still more at her "plan,"—the slight cloud of dubiety vanished from Miss Ellis. She stood in full sunshine.
"But why not lunch here?" urged Lady McIntyre.
"We want to talk America, don't we? And the old days?"
"Yes, yes," said her enraptured friend.