"What are you muttering about?" Cara asked impatiently. "Take me home, I'm tired of all this light and glitter. Sometimes I wish that I had never left the country. All the same, I would give a great deal to know what those people are talking about."
CHAPTER X.
A WORD TO THE WISE.
Sir Clement stood before a looking-glass in the library surveying himself with a certain saturnine humour. He was just as fond of analysing himself as other people, and he had just come to the conclusion that there was a deal to be said from the Darwinian point of view.
"Is it the morning-coat or the top-hat?" he asked himself. "How terribly like a dissipated old ape I look, to be sure! And yet in a velvet dinner-jacket I am quite—well, picturesque. On the whole, that is better than being handsome. Ah, somebody is going to suffer for this! Come in."
The door opened, and Paul Lopez came almost inaudibly into the room. Not for a moment did Frobisher discontinue his critical examination.
"I'm going to a garden-party," he explained. "I'm taking my womenfolk to the Duchess's afternoon affair. I was just saying to myself that somebody would have to suffer for this."
Lopez dropped into a chair and lighted a cigarette quite coolly.
"Nobody would suspect you of this personal sacrifice without some ultimate benefit," he said.
"Spoken like a book, my prince of rascals," Frobisher cried gaily. "I see they have adjourned those two inquests again."