Instantly the hall was full of hubbub. The excitement bred by that tremendous fact reached even Lady McIntyre. "Dear me! I wonder what the Pforzheims will say to that. They will be astonished."
Miss Greta went through the motions of surprise. "Has it really come?"
Napier, observing her narrowly, said to himself. "She knew." And then, "How did she know?"
Julian Grant came hurrying in with excited face. Before he had spoken to anybody else or so much as looked at Nan: "Tell us, Sir William; it's only in the country, isn't it, that people are talking wildly about England being mixed up in this horrible business?"
"People talk everywhere," Sir William said crustily.
After Sir William's rebuff, Julian had gone over and sat down by Nan. It was Miss Greta who did the talking.
Napier saw her leaning across Nan to engage Mr. Grant. Most gentle she was, ingratiating. As he strolled nearer, Napier heard one or two of her leading questions, put with an air of having no idea how straight they went to the heart of the matter.
"Oh, you think that? I should so like to know why."
Sir William, pretending not to listen, pretending to talk to Madge, lost no word; neither Julian's denunciation of the idea of England's interfering, nor Miss Greta's, "Well, it would be quixotic. And whatever her enemies may say, England is not quixotic." It was the kind of little compliment with a sting in its tail that Miss Greta could deliver with an innocence that must, Napier decided, console her for many an enforced piece of self-suppression.
"'Quixotic!'" Julian began to tell how much worse it would be than that.