She flushed slightly, and appeared for a moment to be confused.
“Oh, well, I don’t want to go alone very particularly, you know,” she tried to assure me. “It is the foolishness of not allowing me to travel down there like any other girl that I object to. If a maid can take a railway journey alone, why can’t I?”
“Because you have the convenances of society to respect—the domestic servant need not.”
“Then I prefer the lot of the domestic,” she declared in a manner which told me that something had annoyed her. For my own part I should have regretted very much if Mrs Percival had consented to her going down to Herefordshire alone, while it also seemed apparent that she had some secret reason of her own for not taking her elder companion with her.
What, I wondered, could it be?
I inquired the reason why she wished to go to Mayvill without even a maid, but she made an excuse that she wanted to see the other four hunters were being properly treated by the studs-man, and also to make a search through her father’s study to ascertain whether any important or confidential papers remained there. She had the keys, and intended to do this before that odious person, Dawson, assumed his office.
This suggestion, evidently made as an excuse, struck me as one that really should be acted upon without delay, yet it was so very plain that she desired to go alone that at first I hesitated to offer to accompany her. Our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that I could of course offer to do so without overstepping the bounds of propriety, nevertheless I resolved to first endeavour to learn the reason of her strong desire to travel alone.
She was a clever woman, however, and had no intention of telling me. She had a strong and secret desire to go down alone to that fine old country house that was now her own, and did not desire that Mrs Percival should accompany her.
“If you are really going to search the library, Mabel, had I not better accompany and help you?” I suggested presently. “That is, of course, if you will permit me,” I added apologetically.
For a moment she was silent, as though devising some means out of a dilemma, then she answered—