He put the tips of his fingers together and gazed abstractedly before him. There was no reading what lay in his mind. “Grayson!” he said softly.
“You know something of Sir Humphrey, sir?”
His remarkable eyes travelled to her face. “My child, there are few people of whom I do not know something,” he announced, and took his stately leave of them.
Prudence saw no necessity to mention the matter to her brother, but to John, whom she found arranging pots of powder and paint in Robin’s chamber, she said: “The old gentleman’s mysterious over Miss Grayson, John. Is Sir Humphrey a friend of his boyhood?”
John could not take it upon himself to answer.
“Ay, you know more than you’ll admit, don’t you?” said Prudence.
John set down one of the pots with a snap. “I’ll say this, Miss Prue: I don’t understand the game he’s playing now!”
“Why, when have any of us understood him?”
The man compressed his lips, and seemed to regret his outburst. He could vouchsafe no more.
Robin came in a while later, a vision in cherry stripes, and a lace fichu. “The Markham hangs about Letty still,” he said abruptly. “She meets him at houses here and there. I’m to gather he tries to ingratiate himself once more.”