"What is the trouble? Is he violent?"
"No. Sullen."
"What about?"
Mrs. Waddington's mouth set in a hard line.
"Sigsbee is pining for the West again!"
"You don't say so?"
"Yes, sir, he's pining for the great wide open spaces of the West. He says the East is effete and he wants to be out there among the silent canyons where men are men. If you want to know what I think, somebody's been feeding him Zane Grey."
"Can nothing be done?"
"Yes—in time, I can get him right if I'm given time, by stopping his pocket-money. But I need time, and here he is, an hour before my important dinner, with some of the most wealthy and exclusive people in New York expected at any moment, refusing to put on his dress clothes and saying that all a man that is a man needs is to shoot his bison and cut off a steak and cook it by the light of the western stars. And what I want to know is, what am I to do?"
Lord Hunstanton twisted his moustache thoughtfully.