"I don't think Bournemouth would be one bit of good for Margie," she said briskly, "you can't be sure of sunshine—it may be mild, but it's morally certain to rain half the time, and Margie needs cheerful surroundings—sunshine—and the doctor says . . . a complete change of scene and people."
"Where would you propose that I should take her?" Mr Ffolliot asked, fixing his monocle and staring steadily at his mother-in-law.
"To tell you the truth, Hilary, I don't propose that you should take her anywhere. What I propose is that her father and I should take her to Cannes with us a week to-day."
"To Cannes," Mr Ffolliot gasped, "in a week. I don't believe she could stand the journey."
"Oh yes, she could. Her father will see that she does it as comfortably as possible, and I shall take Adèle, who can look after both of us. We'll stay a night in Paris, and at Avignon if Margie shows signs of being very tired. You must understand that Margie will go as our guest."
Mr Ffolliot dropped his monocle and leant back in his chair. "It is most kind of you and the General," he said politely, "but I doubt very much if she can be persuaded to go."
"Oh she's going," Mrs Grantly said easily, while Mary, with scarlet cheeks, looked at her plate, knowing well that the subject had never been so much as touched upon to her mother. "You see, Hilary, she has had a good deal of Redmarley, and the children and you, during the last twenty years, and it will do her all the good in the world to get away from you all for a bit. Don't you agree with me, Mary?"
Mary lifted her downcast eyes and looked straight at her father. "The doctor says it's mother's only chance of getting really strong," she said boldly, "to get right away from all of us."
"You, my dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly continued in the honeyed tones her family had long ago learnt to recognise as the precursor of verbal castigation for somebody, "would not be the agreeable and well-informed person you are, did you not go away by yourself for a fairly long time during every year. I don't think you have missed once since Grantly was born. How often has Margie been away by herself, even for a couple of nights?"
"Margie has never expressed the slightest wish to go away," Mr Ffolliot said reproachfully. "I have often deplored her extreme devotion to her children."