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Lord Marshmoreton, whose thoughts had wandered off to the rose garden, pulled himself together and tried to look menacing. Maud went on without waiting for a reply. She was all bubbling gaiety and insouciance, a charming picture of young English girlhood that nearly made her brother foam at the mouth.
Lord Marshmoreton had selected the same moment as herself for paying a call upon George Bevan. Maud tiptoed away, and hurried back to the castle. Never before had she so clearly realized what a handicap an adhesive family can be to a young girl. At the moment of Lord Marshmoreton's arrival, George was reading a letter from Billie Dore, which had come by that morning's post.
"Then it was that man who knocked my hat off?" "What do you mean?" said Lady Caroline. "Knocked your hat off? You never told me he knocked your hat off." "It was when I was asking him to let me look inside the cab. I had grasped the handle of the door, when he suddenly struck my hat, causing it to fly off. And, while I was picking it up, he drove away." "C'k," exploded Lord Marshmoreton.
"Your only daughter and a man nobody knows anything about!" "Quite!" said Percy. Lord Marshmoreton seized his advantage with the skill of an adroit debater. "That's where you're wrong. I know all about him. He's a very rich man. You heard the way all those people at dinner behaved when they heard his name. Very celebrated man! Makes thousands of pounds a year.
Not realizing that the subject had been changed, George was under the impression that the other had shifted his front and was about to attack him from another angle. He countered what seemed to him an insinuation stoutly. "We merely happened to meet at the castle. She came there quite independently of me." Lord Marshmoreton looked alarmed. "You didn't know her?" he said anxiously.
Lord Marshmoreton turned on him irritably. "Good God, boy, can't you answer a simple question with a plain affirmative? What do you mean quite? If somebody came to me and pointed you out and said, 'Is that your son? do you suppose I should say 'Quite? I wish the devil you didn't collect prayer rugs. It's sapped your brain." "They say prison life often weakens the intellect, father," said Maud.
The clatter of conversation ceased once more stunned, as it always is at dinner parties when one of the gathering is seen to have assumed an upright position. Lord Marshmoreton cleared his throat again. His tanned face had taken on a deeper hue, and there was a look in his eyes which seemed to suggest that he was defying something or somebody.
"Well, you're practically that now," said George. "Eh?" cried Lord Marshmoreton, forgetting the thread of his discourse in the shock of pleased surprise. "You don't look a day over forty." "Oh, come, come, my boy! . . . I mean, Mr. Bevan." "You don't honestly." "I'm forty-eight." "The Prime of Life." "And you don't think I look it?" "You certainly don't." "Well, well, well!
Never, in his memory, had he come across so sensible and charming a girl; and he had looked forward with a singular intensity to meeting her again. And now some too zealous housemaid, tidying up after the irritating manner of her species, had destroyed the only clue to her identity. It was not for some time after this discovery that hope dawned again for Lord Marshmoreton.
"What is?" "This foolery of titles and aristocracy. Silly fetish-worship! One man's as good as another. . . ." "This is the spirit of '76!" said George approvingly. "Regular I.W.W. stuff," agreed Billie. "Shake hands the President of the Bolsheviki!" Lord Marshmoreton ignored the interruption. There was a strange look in his eyes.
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