"Certainly," said Desboro, smiling. "Did you imagine I'd ever let Miss Nevers escape from Silverwood?"
Ledyard heaved a sigh of relief: "Gad," he muttered, "I suspected you both for a moment. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Every man here would have murdered you in turn. Come on, Miss Nevers; you've made a big splash with me, and I'll play you a game of rabbit—or anything on earth, if you'll let me run along beside you."
"No, I'm driving with Captain Herrendene to the station," she said; and that melancholy soldier looked up in grateful surprise.
And she did go with him; and everybody came out on the front steps to wish him bon voyage.
"Are you coming back, Miss Nevers?" asked Ledyard, in pretended alarm.
"I don't know. Is Manila worth seeing, Captain Herrendene?" she asked, laughingly.
"If you sail for Manila with that tin soldier I'll go after you in a hydroplane!" called Reggie after them, as the car rolled away. He added frankly, for everybody's benefit: "I hate any man who even looks at her, and I don't care who knows it. But what's the use? Going to night-school might help me, but I doubt it. No; she's for a better line of goods than the samples at Silverwood. She shines too far above us. Mark that, James Desboro! And take what comfort you can in your reflected glory. For had she not been the spotlight, you'd look exactly like the rest of us. And that isn't flattering anybody, I'm thinking."
It was to be the last day of the party. Everybody was leaving directly after luncheon, and now everybody seemed inclined to do nothing in particular. Mrs. Clydesdale came over from the Hammerton's. The air was soft and springlike; the snow in the fields was melting and full of golden pools. People seemed to be inclined to stroll about outdoors without their hats; a lively snowball battle began between Cary Clydesdale on one side and Cairns and Reggie Ledyard on the other—and gradually was participated in by everybody except Aunt Hannah, who grimly watched it from the library window. But her weather eye never left Mrs. Clydesdale.
She was still standing at the window when somebody entered the library behind her, and somebody else followed. She knew who they were; the curtains screened her. For one second the temptation to listen beset her, but she put it away with a sniff, and had already turned to disclose herself when she heard Mrs. Clydesdale say something that stiffened her into a rigid silence.