‘I suppose so,’ she replied carelessly, and there was an end of the conversation. Lucian explained to Darlington that night that he would not be able to keep his engagement, and set forth the reasons with a fine air of devotion to business. Darlington sympathised, and applauded Lucian’s determination—he knew, he said, what a lot depended upon the success of the new play, and he’d no doubt Lucian wouldn’t feel quite easy until it was all in order. After that he must have a long rest—it would be rather good fun to winter in Egypt. Lucian agreed, and next day made his preparations for a descent upon Simonstower. At heart he was rather more than glad to escape the yacht, the Highland shooting-box, and the people whom he would have met. He cared little for the sea, and hated any form of sport which involved the slaying of animals or birds; the thought of Simonstower in the last weeks of summer was grateful to him, and all that he now wanted was to find himself in a Great Northern express gliding out of King’s Cross, bound for the moorlands.
He went round to the hospital on the morning of his departure, and told Sprats with the glee of a schoolboy who is going home for the holidays, that he was off that very afternoon. He was rattling on as to his joy when Sprats stopped him.
‘And Haidee?’ she asked. ‘Does she like it?’
‘Haidee?’ he said. ‘But Haidee is not going. She’s joining a party on Darlington’s yacht, and they’re going round the coast to his place in the Highlands. I was to have gone, you know, but really I couldn’t have worked, and I must work—it’s absolutely necessary that the play should be finished by the end of September.’
Sprats looked anxious and troubled.
‘Look here, Lucian,’ she said, ‘do you think it’s quite right to leave Haidee like that?—isn’t it rather neglecting your duties?’
‘But why?’ he asked, with such sincerity that it became plain to Sprats that the question had never even entered his mind. ‘Haidee’s all right. It would be beastly selfish on my part if I dragged her down to Simonstower for nearly two months—you know, she doesn’t care a bit for the country, and there would be no society for her. She needs sea air, and three weeks on Darlington’s yacht will do her a lot of good.’
‘Who are the other people?’ asked Sprats.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Lucian replied. ‘The usual Darlington lot, I suppose. Between you and me, Sprats, I’m glad I’m not going. I get rather sick of that sort of thing—it’s too much of a hot-house existence. And I don’t care about the people one meets, either.’
‘And yet you let Haidee meet them!’ Sprats exclaimed. ‘Really, Lucian, you grow more and more paradoxical.’