"Thanks. Tell 'em to saddle the Demon, will you? I'll be ready in two minutes."
And Mrs Olliver vanished from the room.
As Desmond prepared to follow her, his wife's fingers closed firmly on the edge of his dinner-jacket.
She was sitting now in the chair he had left; and turned up to him a face half beseeching, half resentful in its frame of soft hair.
"Why must you go, Theo? There are heaps of others who—aren't married."
"Don't be a little fool, child!" he broke out in spite of himself. Then gently, decisively, he disengaged her fingers from his coat; but their clinging grasp checked his impatience to be gone.
He bent down, and spoke in a softened tone. "I've no time for arguments, Evelyn. I am simply doing my duty."
He was gone—and she remained as he had left her, with hands lying listlessly in her lap, and a frown between her finely pencilled brows,—mollified, but by no means convinced.
Honor had hurried into the hall, where Frank Olliver greeted her with impulsive invitation.
"Why don't you 'boot and saddle' too, Honor, an' ride along with us?"