"No doubt," assented Captain Frederick. "Where's the use of being anything better in such a silly world as this? Your wife has always paid me compliments, MacIvor, since the time we were in pinafores."
"Just as she does me," nodded little Sir Sandy. "And how is Mr. Grubb?—I liked him, too, captain. Does he still keep up that big establishment in Grosvenor Square all for himself?"
"Yes. Why shouldn't he? He is rich enough to keep up ten of them. By the way, he is a member of Parliament now—do you know it? They've returned him for Wheatshire."
And thus the conversation continued. But we need not follow it.
After Captain Cust left at night, for he stayed the day with them, Lady Harriet sat in silent thought, apparently weighing some matter in her mind.
"Sandy," she said at length, looking across at him, "I don't think I shall tell Adela anything about this—I mean that her husband is to take the baronetcy. It will be better not."
"Why?" asked Sir Sandy.
"It will bring her past folly home to her so severely. It may bring all the fever back again."
"As you please, of course, dear. But she did not seem to care at all when told he had inherited Netherleigh."
"That's all you know about it, Sandy!" retorted Lady Harriet. "I saw—all the light in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks. I tell you, sir, she is in love with her husband now, though she may never have been before, and it will try her too greatly, in her weak state. Her chief bone of contention in the old days was his name; that's removed now. And she has forfeited that lovely place, Court Netherleigh!"