"You shall have them at your own price when I put them up for sale," he answered.
She coloured. Her first thought was that he intended to snub her, but she quickly dismissed the idea. No, he must have meant that the moment was not propitious. Perhaps he, also, had been thinking of....
"You never married in all those years?" she asked abruptly, and with a little tremor in her voice that she could not control.
"No."
"Why?"
He smiled at her in a quizzical way and shrugged his shoulders.
"Ah, here we are," he said as the car drew up before the stately entrance to Redhurst Towers. Springing out, he made his way round to the other side in order to help her to alight. McPhulach, however, was before him and stood with his arm crooked at an angle of forty-five degrees, his body bent, and an ingratiating leer on his face.
"Hae a care o' yon step, ye'r leddyship," he remarked.
But the lady was equal to the occasion. Ignoring his arm, she sprang to the ground.
"Will you be so kind as to bring my furs from the car?" she asked sweetly, and to herself: "Why on earth has John brought this uncouth, seafaring savage with him?"