“You are not ambitious of power?”
“Of power, yes. What woman is not? But brains before acres, and the owners of acres are apt to cultivate them and let their brains lie fallow.”
Wareham was indifferent to his rival. He said—
“I dare say you are right. Lord Milborough does not seem to me to be wanting in brains, but rather in finding occasions to use them. Politics—a national crisis—might develop them.”
Anne shrugged her shoulders. “He is wearisome. Is this the wood?”
She expected Wareham to take advantage of her depreciation of their host. He merely answered the question.
“This is it, with such a broad path that I hope you will not get wet.”
“Oh, the rain has stopped,” said Anne, and shut her umbrella impatiently.
“I see water. Some one spoke of a lake, beautiful with rhododendrons in spring, and a house by its side, where Lady Fanny and her friend Miss Ravenhill spent a month together last year.”
“That sounds very romantic. I wonder what they talked of all the time.”