“Frank,” said Sir Lucius, “did you and Priscilla happen to see anything of a young lady——”
“You may just as well tell him the story,” said Lord Torrington. “It’ll be in the papers in a day or two if we can’t find her.”
“Very well, Torrington. Just as you like. The fact is, Frank, that Lord Torrington is here looking for his daughter, who has——well, a week ago she disappeared.”
“Disappeared!” said Lord Torrington. “Why not say bolted?”
“Ran away from home,” said Sir Lucius.
“According to your aunt——” said Lord Torrington.
“She’s not my aunt,” said Frank.
“Oh, isn’t she?” Lord Torrington’s tone suggested that this was a distinct advantage to Frank. “According to Miss Lentaigne then, the girl has asserted her right to live her own life untrammelled by the fetters of conventionality. That’s the way she put it, isn’t it, Lentaigne?”
“Lady Isabel,” said Sir Lucius, “came over to Ireland. We know that.”
“Booked her luggage in advance from Euston,” said Lord Torrington, “under another name. I had a detective on the job, and he worried that out. Women are all going mad nowadays; though I had no notion Isabel went in for—well, the kind of thing your sister talks, Lentaigne. I thought she was religious. She used to be perpetually going to church, evensong on the Vigil of St. Euphrosyne, and that kind of thing, but I am told lots of parsons now have taken up these advanced ideas about women. It may have been in church she heard them.”