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But Quarrier and Miss Caithness had already returned to the squash-courts, the majority of the swimmers to their several dressing-rooms, and Grace Ferrall's party, equipped for motoring, to the lawn, where they lost little time in disappearing into the golden haze which a sudden shift of wind had spun out of the cloudless afternoon's sunshine.
The gathering frown on Mrs. Ferrall's brow faded; she raised her clear grey eyes and met her husband's gaze, gay, humourous, and with a hint of tenderness enough to bring the colour into her pretty face. "You know I'm right, Kemp." "Always, dear. And now that we have the world off our hands for a few minutes, suppose we gallop?"
And Plank was either too kind to terminate the subject, or too anxious to serve his turn and release her; for he went on: "I thought I told you at Mrs. Ferrall's that Mr. Siward had gone to the country." "Perhaps you did. No doubt I've forgotten." "I'm quite sure I did, because I remember saying that he looked very ill, and you said, rather sharply, that he had no business to be ill.
She leaned forward from Ferrall's arm, saying, under her breath, "I have saved a dance for you. Please ask me at once. Quick! do you want me?" "I I do," stammered Plank. Do you want any supper, or don't you? If you don't, it's our dance." "No, I don't. No, it isn't. Kemp, you annoy me!" "That's a nice thing to say! Is it your delicately inimitable way of giving me my congé?"
The extraordinary cackling laughter of his lordship obliterated other sounds for a while; Rena Bonnesdel possessed herself of the drawing and held it up amid a shout of laughter. And, to his excessive annoyance, Siward saw that, unconsciously, he had caricatured Quarrier Ferrall's malicious request for a Vandyke beard making the caricature dreadfully apparent.
But that tempest of passion and mortification passed, too, leaving him standing there, dumb, desperate, staring at the letter crushed in his shaking hand. He must see somebody, some member of the Lenox, and do something something! Ferrall! Was that Ferrall's step on the landing? He sprang to the door and opened it.
Ferrall?" repeated the baggage-master, spinning a trunk dexterously into rank with its fellows. "Say, one of Mr. Ferrall's men was here just now there he is, over there uncrating that there bird-dog!"
Ferrall's men?" he asked in his agreeable voice. The groom looked up, then stood up: "Yis, Sorr." "Take these; I'm Mr. Siward for Shotover House. I dare say you have room for me and the dog, too." The groom opened his mouth to speak, but Siward took the crate key from his fingers, knelt, and tried the lock. It resisted. From the depths of the crate a beseeching paw fell upon his cuff.
"Beg pardon, Sorr," began the groom, carried almost off his feet by the frantic circling of the dog "beg pardon, Sorr, but I'll be afther seem' if anny of Mr. Ferrall's men drove over for you " "Oh! Are you not one of Mr. Ferrall's men?" "Yis, Sorr, but I hadn't anny orders to meet anny wan " "Haven't you anything here to drive me in?" "Yis, Sorr I'll look to see "
Sylvia was there, Quarrier expected because Kemp Ferrall's break with him was not a social one, and Grace's real affection for Sylvia blinded neither her nor her husband to the material and social importance of the intimacy.
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