Miss von Schwarzenberg's air of dreamy sentimentality dropped from her as the petals of an overblown rose at some rude touch. She stood bare of all but the essential woman with never a grace to clothe her. "What on earth are you talking about? Does she mean to carry him off...?"
Napier shrugged. "I can only say that it's highly probable if Miss Ellis goes to London that Mr. Grant will find an excuse for going too."
"You'd have to prevent that. What would his father, what would Lady Grant think of...." She stopped there, as having indicated some unsuitableness even greater than might appear.
"All the more, then," said Napier, as though she had given out of those close-shut lips some damning fact, "all the more we ought to keep an eye on them. But if they are in London—there'll be only one of us 'to keep an eye'—" She kept both of hers on Napier. "You'd be here," he added, "and I'd be sweltering in London."
"You, too, in Nan's train!"
"Oh, dear, no!" he laughed. "In Julian's, catching up what Miss Ellis designs to let fall."
"You, too!" she repeated, as though the calamity were greater than she could grasp.
He nodded. "I'd have to. Especially after what you ... didn't say. And to go to London now would be an awful sell for both of us."
"For both of us?" she inquired with a little catch.
"For Julian and me. My holiday begins in ten days, and we were counting on having it in Scotland. You see," he explained, "we've looked forward to these next weeks for over a year. We've spent our summers together ever since Eton days. If Julian goes, I've got to go too. And I should look on such a necessity,"—he gazed upon the lady as he spoke, with eyes well practised in conveying tender regretfulness—"I should look on it as a personal misfortune."