"But Nosy Parker is what I call him," she said. "He minds everybody's business as well as his own."
The last of the procession trickled into the steward's room.
Mr. Beach said grace somewhat patronizingly. The meal began.
"You've seen Miss Peters, of course, Mr. Marson?" said Miss
Willoughby, resuming conversation with the soup.
"Just for a few minutes at Paddington."
"Oh! You haven't been with Mr. Peters long, then?"
Ashe began to wonder whether everybody he met was going to ask him this dangerous question.
"Only a day or so."
"Where were you before that?"
Ashe was conscious of a prickly sensation. A little more of this and he might as well reveal his true mission at the castle and have done with it.
"Oh, I was—that is to say——"