“Oh, Harry! Harry’s a lucky beggar,” said Fenwick. He had not sat down, but stood with his hands behind him, holding the back of the chair against which he leaned.
“You say so? That’s what comes of not grumbling. I should like to see you doing Harry’s work for a day. We should all hear of it,” she added sarcastically.
“Oh, praise him as much as you like,”—was there a slight emphasis on the him?—“you are right, he deserves it. Granting a few limitations, Harry Hilton is a first-rate fellow.”
He looked at Miss Arbuthnot smiling, she, too, smiled back. Claudia, on the contrary, frowned slightly, not from displeasure, but from a feeling of being puzzled.
“Now that they are both engaged they seem on better terms than they were before,” she pondered. “I wonder why it should be, I wonder what has brought them together?”
For she knew they had not met. The next moment she heard Miss Arbuthnot being invited to drive on the Artillery coach.
“Thanks, no,” she said indifferently. “I’ve too much on hand just now.”
“To go about with—him, I suppose,” he said sharply. “But you can bring him—if you must.”
“What a real gush of hospitality!” she returned in a mocking tone. “Alas! even if I must, it is doubtful whether he would.”
“Well—ask him.”