The young lady took the hint.
"All right, dad; we'll both of us be ready in ever so much less than a brace of shakes!"
Slipping her arm through Dorothy's she led her from the room. When the two girls had gone husband and wife looked at each other. The man was the first to speak.
"It's odd that she shouldn't know him as the Earl of Strathmoira--it strikes me that my gentleman's a queerer fish even than I thought."
His wife eyed him for a moment, as if quizzically; then she turned aside, ostensibly to collect the papers on which she had been engaged.
"Harold, have you ever heard of blindfold chess?"
Under the circumstances it seemed a curious question--so it seemed to strike him.
"Adela, what on earth do you mean?"
"It occurs to me that we are about to act as pawns in a game of chess without even knowing who are the players."
Her husband stared at her, as if with a total lack of comprehension. When he spoke his tone was irascible.