The footman grinned.
"Well," he said, "you 'll know more about that the longer you 're here."
As he spoke, the boys under discussion entered the doorway and seating themselves upon the running board of a touring car, helped themselves to cigarettes from a silver case which the elder took from his pocket. They lighted them without a glance at the two men and had soon filled the atmosphere with pungent smoke.
"Do they do this often?" asked Armitage at length, turning to Ryan and speaking in a voice not intended to be hidden.
The footman grinned and nodded.
"Against the rules, isn't it?" persisted Armitage, much to Ryan's evident embarrassment, who, however, nodded again.
The older boy took his cigarette from his mouth and rising, walked a few steps toward the new chauffeur. He was a slender stripling with high forehead, long, straight nose, and a face chiefly marked by an imperious expression. In his flannels and flapping Panama hat he was a reduced copy of such Englishmen as Armitage had seen lounging in the boxes at Ascot or about the paddock at Auteuil.
"Were you speaking of us, my man?" he said.
A gleam of amusement crossed Armitage's face.
"I—I believe I was, my boy. Why?"