"Must you really go, Maurice dear?" she said. "What a horrid nuisance! I suppose you have to catch the 9.50 from Woodford. Of course, I won't hear of anyone cutting short their visit. Stuart will play host for you while you are away, and we'll manage to amuse ourselves somehow."
"Yes," said Maurice, looking at me with a friendly smile. "You'll see to things, won't you, old chap? I'll just run in now and put my traps up. Dinner at the usual time, of course."
As he spoke, the dressing gong sounded, and we all trooped into the house.
I made my way up to my own room, where I lit a cigarette and sat down on the bed.
"Now what the dickens," said I to myself, "can have been in that wire?"
CHAPTER XVIII
It was not York's fault that I took no part in the cricket match. His persistent and pathetic appeals to me at breakfast to fill the vacant place in his eleven were worthy of a more hopeful cause.
"Oh, leave Mr. Northcote alone, Bertie," broke in his sister at last. "You've got ten people already, and that's quite enough for the silly game."
"Ten!" retorted her brother. "What's the good of ten, and half of them village boys? Orbridge are a frightfully hot side."