“I never drive when I can ride,” said his lordship indifferently.
“I make no doubt at all that had I been Mary Challoner you would have been glad enough to have borne me company!”
The Marquis was snuffing one of the candles, but he looked up at that, and there was a glint in his eye. “That, my dear, is quite another matter,” he said.
Miss Marling told him roundly that he was the rudest creature she had ever met and when he only laughed, she launched into a speech of some length.
He interrupted her to say: “My good cousin, do you wish to catch up with our two runaways, or not?”
“Of course I do! But must we travel at this shocking speed? They cannot reach Dijon for two or three days, and we’ve time enough, I should have thought, to come up with them.”
“I want to overtake them to-night,” Vidal said grimly. “They are not three hours ahead of us now.”
“What! Have we gained on them so fast? Then I take it all back, Vidal, every word. Let us go on at once!”
“We’ll dine first,” answered his lordship.
“How,” demanded Juliana tragically, “can you suppose that I could think of food at such a time?”