He chuckled to himself. "But, after all, this is different," he continued. "I am not in this one, exactly. No more are you. It's Peggy's fix. And we don't quite know how she's got into it. I don't like the look of it."
Lady Attwill listened to him with an aspect of particular attention. But if the man had been able to realise it he would have seen the flash of contempt which came and went over her face. He did not, however, and she replied in her ordinary tones:
"Look of it! It's merely a frolic—nothing serious. Collingwood is not the man to run risks. He believes in the simple life."
"Does he, by Jove!" Lord Ellerdine said. "He's not so simple as that, Alice."
"He is not so simple as to get into a complication with Admaston," she answered. "He's no fool—you take my word for it."
Lord Ellerdine grinned his fatuous little grin.
"Seems I have to take your word for everything," he said.
"All right, Dicky," she answered; "just you leave all the thinking to me."
"You don't give me time to think," he answered. "I know I am deuced slow at it. But tell me this. How did Peggy and Collingwood get to my place last autumn before ten o'clock in the morning? Tell me that—what?"
"They motored through the night, of course."