"You are wanted at the telephone, Brandon. I've just been talking to Sara."
"Did she call you up, father?" asked Vivian, leaning over the rail.
"Yes. About nothing in particular, however."
She turned upon Booth with a mocking smile. He felt the colour rush to his face, and was angry with himself.
He went in to the telephone. Almost her first words were these:
"What has Vivian been telling you about me, Brandon?"
He actually gasped. "Good heavens, Sara!"
He heard her low laugh. "So she HAS been saying things, has she?" she asked. "I thought so. I've had it in my bones to-night."
He was at a loss for words. It was positively uncanny. As he stood there, trying to think of a trivial remark, her laugh came to him again over the wire, followed by a drawling "good-night," and then the soughing of the wind over the "open" wire.
The next day he called her up on the telephone quite early. He knew her habits. She would be abroad in her gardens by eight o'clock. He remembered well that Leslie, in commenting on her absurdly early hours, had once said that her "early bird" habit was hereditary: she got it from Sebastian.