“You never meant Frogmore to come here?”
“Frogmore!” she said, with a sort of wondering obtuseness. She was never stupid, and it made John angry, because he was quite unaccustomed to be misunderstood.
“You had better look at the telegram,” he said impatiently. “I don’t pretend to know what you mean. Here is the house crammed with men, and my brother, for the first time since we have been married, proposes a visit. What are we to do?”
It took Letitia some time to understand; her mind was so preoccupied by the other subject that she could not distract her thoughts from it. Frogmore—Frogmore or Ralph—which was it? She tried to shake herself together and grasp the sense of the words at which she was gazing:
“Could come to you to-morrow for three or four days, if it suits you.
“Frogmore.”
“Was there ever such a bore?” John continued saying. “The first time he has proposed to come. And we’ve got the house crammed, and not a corner to put him in. What am I to do?”
“Frogmore!” Letitia murmured again to herself; and John went on saying, with a monotony which is natural to many men, the same burden of regret, “The house full of men and not a corner to put him in,” as if, in some way, the repeated statement of that fact might make a change.
“I don’t know what you are thinking of,” said Letitia at length with much relief in the sense that her own brother would be forgotten in the importance of his. “Of course, Frogmore must come, and there is an end of it. I hope you answered his telegram at once.”
“How could I answer the telegram—when the house is crowded with men and we have not a——”