Mr. Grubb hesitated, and his face slightly flushed. It did not seem right to enter upon Lord Acorn's affairs with a stranger. But she seemed to know all about it, and was waiting for his answer.
"Not on the Netherleigh estate," he answered. "I have always told Lord Acorn that he ought not to make sure of that."
"You would be quite safe in lending it," she nodded, a peculiar look of acuteness, which Mr. Grubb did not altogether fathom, on her face. "Quite."
Some stir interrupted further conversation. The tinkering, as Miss Upton called it, had ceased, and the down-line was at length ready for traffic. "Where are my people, I wonder?" cried Miss Upton, rising and looking around.
They came forward almost as she spoke—a man and a maid servant. The former took up the box she had been sitting on, and Mr. Grubb gave her his arm to the train, and put her into the carriage.
"This is the first time I have seen you, but I hope it will not be the last," she said, retaining his hand, in hers when he had shaken it. "I am now on my way to Cheltenham, to spend a month, perhaps two months. I like the place, and go to it nearly every year. When I return, you must come to Court Netherleigh."
"I shall be very much pleased to do so."
Mr. Grubb had left her, and was waiting to see the train go on, when she made a hasty movement to him with her hand.
"Perhaps I was incautious in saying that you were safe in lending money on the Netherleigh property," she whispered in his ear. "Take care you don't breathe a word of that admission to Acorn. He would want to borrow you out of house and home."
Mr. Grubb smiled. "I will take care; you may rely on me, Miss Upton." And he stood back and lifted his hat as the delayed train puffed on.