This reasoning may have been lucid and it may have been pregnant; at least it recommended itself to the comprehensive intellect of the Man of Destiny.
"Quite right, Vane-Anstruther. I shall hold you responsible for O'Mulligan."
"Joseph," said the Great Lady upon a stentorian note, "are you mad also?"
Hardly had this pertinent inquiry been advanced when the noble Master was on his legs.
"So awfully sorry, Mrs. Catesby," he said with a long-drawn sweetness of apology, "but it can't be helped in the circumstances, can it? I leave hounds in the care of George and Frederick. Keep Potts up to his work, George, and see that he pays proper attention to their feet. And Frederick, I charge you to make it your business to see that Madrigal has a ball every Friday."
"Reginald," said his hostess with great energy, "in the unavoidable absence of your widowed and unfortunate mother I absolutely forbid you to bear a part in this hare-brained enterprise. I really don't know what Nevil can be thinking of."
In Ascalon whisper it not, but this was the precise moment in which I found the cynical eye of the Chief Constable upon me for the second time. The eye was also wary and a little pensive, but the great man rose in his place with an air of profound rumination. He slowly cracked a walnut and then turned to the butler, with a coolness which to my mind had a suspicion of the uncanny.
"Just tell my chap to have my car round at once," he said; and then with great deference to his hostess, "a thousand apologies, Mrs. Catesby, but you do see, don't you, that it can't be helped?"
Whether I rose to my feet by an act of private volition or at the subconscious beck of another's compelling power, there is no need to attempt to determine. But somehow I found myself upon my legs and adding my own imperfect apologies to the equally imperfect ones of the Chief Constable.
"Odo Arbuthnot," said my hostess, "sit down at once. A married man, a father of a family, and a county member! Sit down at once and get on with your fruit. Colonel Coverdale! I am surprised at you."