'Dear me,' she cried, 'if I had been a man I should have scurried off at a signal of release, quick as a hare I once woke up in a field with my foot on its back.'
Dacier's eyebrows knotted a trifle over her eagerness to dismiss him: he was not used to it, but rather to be courted by women, and to condescend.
'I shall not long, I'm afraid, have the pleasure of walking beside you and hearing you. I had letters at Lugano. My uncle is unwell, I hear.'
'Lord Dannisburgh?'
The name sprang from her lips unhesitatingly.
His nodded affirmative altered her face and her voice.
'It is not a grave illness?'
'They rather fear it.'
'You had the news at Lugano?'
He answered the implied reproach: 'I can be of no, service.'