"I heard an amusing thing about the father the other day," said Lady Anne. "Of course, Mary knows nothing about it. I called at Gordon's—that is where Mr. Gray is employed—about a new catch for my amethyst bracelet. I have known Mr. Gordon for years. He is a thoroughly respectable man. It seems there is a very ill-conditioned person who works in the same room as Mr. Gray—a good workman, but most ill-conditioned. When he is especially bad-tempered he vents his anger on his quiet room-fellow, who never seems to hear him but works away as though he were a thousand miles distant from the grumbling and scolding. Well, it seems that the other day, despairing, perhaps, of rousing Mr. Gray by any other methods, he made a reference to Mary as having got into fine society and looking down on her father. It's a little place, after all, my dear, and you and your motor-car are known as well as the Town Hall. Mr. Gray got up very quietly and threw the man downstairs; then went back to his work without a word. Gordon saw it in quite the right way. He said that the person thoroughly well deserved it, but that the next time he mightn't get off with a few bruises, and that would be awkward for Mr. Gray. So he has given him another room."
"Ah, bravo!" Lady Agatha clapped her hands together. "That's where Mary gets it. I've seen the light of battle in her eye—haven't you?"
"Sometimes—when she has heard of cruelty and injustice."
Now that Mary's schooling was over, she was to see the world under Lady Anne's auspices. They were to go abroad soon after Christmas, to be in Rome for Easter, to dawdle about the Continent where they would and for as long as they would. Everything was planned and mapped out. Mary had her neat travelling-dress of grey cloth, tailor-made, her close-fitting toque, her veil and gloves, all her equipment, lying ready to put on. Her old friend, Simmons, had packed her travelling trunk. It had come to almost the last day.
And, to be sure, Mary must be much with her father and the others during those last hours. She had gone with her father for a long country walk.
"I wish you were coming, too," said Mary, clinging closely to his arm.
"You will be bringing me back fine stories," her father said, patting her hand. "I shall be seeing the world through your eyes, child."
"I shall write to you every day."
"I shan't expect that, Mary. You will be moving from place to place. I know you will write when you can, and I am always sure of your love."
While they talked Lady Anne was receiving Dr. Carruthers professionally. She had had symptoms, weaknesses, pangs, of which she had told nobody.