"Hadn't you? I've often wondered." She gave him a quick, searching glance as she spoke. "Are you staying here long?"
"No, only a few hours. I return to London this afternoon. I came down to-day just on impulse. I had no reason for coming."
"Hadn't you? I'm glad you came."
"So am I."
There was a strange intensity in his tones, but he did not know why he spoke with so much feeling.
"Of course Granddad and I have often talked of you," she went on. "Do you know when we called on you that day in London, I was disappointed in you. I don't know why. You had altered so much. You did not seem at all like you were when we saw you down here. I told Granddad so. But I'm so glad you are Member of Parliament for Eastroyd, and so glad you've called. There, the lunch is ready. Please remember, Mr. Faversham, that I'm housekeeper, and am responsible for lunch. If you don't like it, I shall be offended."
She spoke with all the freedom and frankness of a child, but Dick was not slow to recognise the fact that the child who had come to Wendover when Romanoff was weaving a web of temptation around him, had become a woman who could no longer be treated as a child.
"Are you hungry, Sir George?" she went on, turning to her other visitor. "Do you know, Mr. Faversham, that these two men have neglected me shamefully? They have been so interested in rubbings of ancient inscriptions, and writings on the tombs of Egyptian kings, that they've forgotten that I've had to cudgel my poor little brains about what they should eat. Housekeeping's no easy matter in these days."
"That's not fair," replied Sir George. "It was Mr. Stanmore here, who was so interested that he forgot all about meal-times."
The soldier was so earnest that he angered Dick. "Why couldn't the fool take what she said in the spirit of raillery?" he asked himself.