Gavan Napier's first impression on entering the hall had been of the still intensity of Miss Greta's gaze; perhaps he was the more struck by it because it wasn't on himself. On Sir William. As she closed the book she'd been reading aloud and rose, the look was gone. Amid the heats of midsummer and of war she stood cool, pearl-powdery, sweet, with a smile for Napier now, and an expression of deferential welcome for Sir William. Miss Greta left to other folk all worrying questions aimed at jaded and travel-worn men.
No, Sir William wasn't going to sleep till after luncheon. But he was hot and dusty, he would go up....
They would have tackled Napier, but he, too, escaped hard upon Sir William's heels.
As Napier followed his chief down three quarters of an hour later, a laugh floated up. Nan Ellis.
She and Bobby sat on the sofa, taking and giving lessons in the tying of sailors' knots. She looked up carelessly enough at Napier's appearance. "How do you do? Do you know any good knots? I thought you wouldn't."
"She is prettier than I remembered," he said to himself.
Sir William, on the hearth-rug, showed a man already refreshed.
"What's this about the papers?" This raised voice commanded the hall.
"Yes, my dear William, for the third time. That was why we had to try to get our news from London. But they were horrid, yesterday, about telling us anything. It's not very pleasant,"—Lady McIntyre revealed her conception of the use of war news—"when neighbors call, expecting us to know the latest, and find we haven't heard a word since Saturday morning."
"Well, then,"—Sir William filled the hiatus with a single sentence—"at seven o'clock on Saturday evening Germany declared war on Russia."