“How simply gorgeous! Of course I don’t want Lord Barnstaple to die, but I should love to be in at that sort of thing. When Mr. Geary died of course he was just laid out in the back parlour—drawing-room I shall always call it hereafter; poor Mrs. Geary has never been out of California since she left the immortal South—and he really did look so uninteresting, and his casket was so hideously expensive. But an earl—laid out in a crypt—of an ancient Abbey—with tenantry kneeling round and shivering at hooded friars in the background—I’m really alive for the first time! Is there an Abbey we could rent anywhere? I’d only want it for about six months, but I’d have a simply heavenly time so long as the novelty lasted.”
“It would take you six months to get used to the size of it,” said Randolph, “and by the time it had begun to fit perhaps you would feel that everything else was commonplace.” He spoke to Coralie, but he looked at Lee.
She smiled and brought her lashes together. “Sometimes there are things one wants more than magnificence,” she said. “Well—Emmy must be awake. I’ll go and speak to her about Tom.”
For Tom was in London and had asked his sister to make known that he desired an invitation to the Abbey, and had come to England merely to look upon its future châtelaine.
Lee found Lady Barnstaple in one of her freshest and fluffiest wrappers and in one of her ugliest tempers—attributable doubtless to the fact that Mr. Pix, after three days of hard shooting, had been obliged to go to London on business, and had not yet returned.
“Ask all California if you like,” she said crossly, “but tell them to keep out of my way. I know their airs of old.”
“It’s not at all likely that your guests would put on airs with you. For the matter of that you have the rank that all good Americans approve of—”
“Some people are putting on airs with me,” said Lady Barnstaple darkly.
This was an obvious opportunity to approach a delicate subject, but Lee shrank from it. Moreover, the thing would have run its natural course before her return and one more unpleasantness been avoided. Lady Mary’s advice was wise and appealed to her present craving for a long period of irresponsibility. So she said instead:
“I think of going to California for a visit—with Mrs. Montgomery, about the middle of October.”