'After my message, Mr. Falkirk will not do that,' said Rollo, looking at his watch. 'It is half-past twelve o'clock.'
Hazel leaned her chin in her hand and looked off into the moonshine. She did not feel like being 'taken care of,' a bit, to-night.
'I am afraid circumstances are affecting Mr. Falkirk's mind,' she said at last, with a tone just a trifle provoked; for half-past twelve was a stubborn fact to deal with. 'Well, Mr. Rollo—if I can by no means save you the trouble, at what hour will it please you to take it?'
'As there are evidently plots against you, suppose you come to the other side-door, and let us go off without speaking to anybody?'
And so it came to pass that in a few minutes more they were comfortably driving homewards, without supervision, the silent groom behind them not counting one.
They were in a light phaeton, with a new horse in it which could go; the old moon was just rising over the trees; the road free, the pace good. The gentleman's tone when he spoke was rather indicative of enjoyment.
'Who is plotting against you?'
'Plotting!—'
'And now disappointed?'
'O, it is just some of Gotham's stupidity,' said Wych Hazel, with a voice not yet at rest: she had been oddly conscious of wishing that no one should hear her whispered good-night to Mrs. Seaton and follow to see with whom she went home. 'He and I are always at cross purposes.'