"She has only had one customer, who got off a Hammersmith 'bus and walked on," replied Sybil, without removing her gaze. "And now—why, it's one of our liveries—Steptoe, the first footman, is going up to her. Oh, but this is interesting. He is offering her a coin, and she is shaking her head."
"Go on," said the General.
"Steptoe is recrossing the road towards the house without buying anything, and—yes, the woman has taken up her basket and is leaving her pitch, don't you call it? She too is crossing to this side of the road, but higher up. Steptoe has turned and is looking after her, and—now I can't see any more without putting my head out of window."
Sybil stopped, breathless; and, without comment on the episode she had just witnessed, the General informed her and Forsyth of the proposed move to Prior's Tarrant. As was to be expected, neither of the engaged couple had any objection to an arrangement which would bring them together under the same roof, Sybil remarking naïvely that it was one thing to be allowed solitary house-room as a poor relation, and quite another to stay with the Duke as a guest. She promised to hold herself in readiness to join Mrs. Sadgrove and the Shermans on the morrow and go down with them, while Forsyth was to wait for his orders until the General returned in the afternoon.
"We may have a ticklish job in getting our noble convoy from one laager to the other, and I shall want you as an aide-de-camp, Alec, as well as Azimoolah Khan for the more serious work," the General explained.
"Azimoolah!" Forsyth exclaimed, remembering certain blood-curdling stories of his uncle's old orderly, who had exchanged the fierce joys of Thug-hunting for the milder enjoyment of valeting his beloved Sahib in Belgravia. "Surely his methods smack too much of the jungle and the nullah for this country."
"That's why I want to cart the whole bag of tricks into the jungle," said the General, grimly. "Well?" he added, as Steptoe entered and tendered the sovereign on a salver.
"The woman wouldn't take it, sir," was the reply. "She got up and went round the corner into Air Street, where she was met by the person who called here last night dressed as a clergyman, only he was dressed as a working-man to-day. They went away together in a four-wheeler."
"Thank you—that simplifies things considerably," said the General, and, announcing his intention of returning later, he bade the footman call a cab and followed him out of the room.
"I wonder what he has got up his sleeve," Forsyth mused aloud, as he and Sibyl watched the wiry figure into the cab. "The spirit of the chase has gripped him tight, and he's in full cry already."