When the taxi drew up at the gate, Maud and Paul and Grisel ran downstairs.
Moreton Twiss, who was reading and smoking in the corner, did not come to the window, and Barclay and Jenny leaned out in the wet, watching the little scene of greeting in the glistening band of light from the open door.
Finally the house door was banged, and the taxi drove away.
"Shall we go down?" Jenny asked, dancing with excitement. "I do so want to see Guy!"
"I think we had better wait where we are. If they want us they will come up here or send for us. Look here, Miss Wick," Barclay went on, struck by a sudden idea, "I am worried about Grisel. What do you think of her?"
Jenny, whose face was contradictory in that it was at once the face of an elf, and of a very practical modern girl, sat down on the back of a chesterfield and looked at him thoughtfully.
"I have been wondering," she said after a pause, "if you noticed it too."
"Oh, then you have seen?"
"Seen? Why, of course. I have never seen anyone change so in my life. Everybody says she looks so much better for being at the sea, but she does not. That's nothing but sunburn, and she is as thin as a herring and as nervous"—she broke off, looking round for a simile—"as a wild cat. I was speaking to my brother about her only the other day."
"Ah!" Something in Sir John's voice struck her, and again she looked at him penetratingly. "What did your brother say?" he went on, meeting her gaze. "He strikes me as a pretty shrewd fellow."