"I knew you'd be surprised!" Lady McIntyre pattered on. "I was. I should have thought of chairs and things myself, if it hadn't been called 'a furnished house.' And charged for as a furnished house! But I should never have thought of furnishing a furnished—And even if I had, I should have been appalled at the idea of packing up heavy furniture and moving it about this way. Linen and silver, of course, and a few vases, and my china cats, just to give a feeling of home, but a thing like a great hulking arm-chair with a reading desk—!"
"Yes," Sir William indulged her, "I should as soon have thought of hoicking up my bed."
"Your bed has been hoicked up," she triumphed. "Greta didn't forget you were very particular about your bed."
"You don't say so."
"Oh, yes. You said once the reason you'd never been back to Germany was because of the beds. I was afraid at the time she'd feel that. But you see how beautifully she's taken it. And what about the war, William?" she said, in exactly the same tone.
Sir William was feeling absently for his cigar-case. "Are they still slaughtering those poor Belgians? Matches? I'm sure there must be matches somewhere." She got up and looked vaguely about the big room, as though she expected the matches to come running like a dog that hears its name called. "Anybody but Greta might forget a little thing like that. There! I told you so!" she exclaimed, as Napier produced a box from the far side of the clock. "What do you say, Mr. Napier? Will it be over by Christmas? Greta is sure it will."
"H'm! H'm! About Miss Greta,"—Sir William struck in with that same exchange of glances the name had called forth at the beginning. "Gavan and I met the inspector of police as we came through the station. New broom. In a great taking. He'd been hauled over the coals, it seems, by an old retired colonel hereabouts—fella called McManus. Has a place a little way down the coast. These retired men are the devil. They don't know they're retired. This fella McManus got wind of a German lady who was here for a week and who, he said, went about poking her nose everywhere."
"She had to poke her nose to get housemaids and an odd man. But McManus! He must be an old horror."
"Well, that's what he said, 'Poking her nose everywhere,' when he lodged his complaint with the inspector. Very decent fella, the inspector."
"Lodged a complaint!" Lady McIntyre echoed. "Against a member of our household."