"Are you going away, Caroline?" inquired Lord Marshmoreton
hopefully.
"I am giving a short talk to the Social Progress League at
Lewisham. I shall return tomorrow."
"Oh!" said Marshmoreton, hope fading from his voice.
"Thank you, Miss Faraday," said Lady Caroline. "The twelve-fifteen."
"The motor will be round at a quarter to twelve."
"Thank you. Oh, by the way, Miss Faraday, will you call to Reggie
as you pass, and tell him I wish to speak to him."
Maud had left Reggie by the time Alice Faraday reached him, and
that ardent youth was sitting on a stone seat, smoking a cigarette
and entertaining himself with meditations in which thoughts of
Alice competed for precedence with graver reflections connected
with the subject of the correct stance for his approach-shots.
Reggie's was a troubled spirit these days. He was in love, and he
had developed a bad slice with his mid-iron. He was practically a
soul in torment.
"Lady Caroline asked me to tell you that she wishes to speak to
you, Mr. Byng."
Reggie leaped from his seat.
"Hullo-ullo-ullo! There you are! I mean to say, what?"
He was conscious, as was his custom in her presence, of a warm,
prickly sensation in the small of the back. Some kind of
elephantiasis seemed to have attacked his hands and feet, swelling
them to enormous proportions. He wished profoundly that he could
get rid of his habit of yelping with nervous laughter whenever he
encountered the girl of his dreams. It was calculated to give her a
wrong impression of a chap--make her think him a fearful chump and
what not!
"Lady Caroline is leaving by the twelve-fifteen."
"That's good! What I mean to say is--oh, she is, is she? I see
what you mean." The absolute necessity of saying something at least
moderately coherent gripped him. He rallied his forces. "You
wouldn't care to come for a stroll, after I've seen the mater, or a
row on the lake, or any rot like that, would you?"
"Thank you very much, but I must go in and help Lord Marshmoreton
with his book."
"What a rotten--I mean, what a dam' shame!"
The pity of it tore at Reggie's heart strings. He burned with
generous wrath against Lord Marshmoreton, that modern Simon Legree,
who used his capitalistic power to make a slave of this girl and
keep her toiling indoors when all the world was sunshine.
"Shall I go and ask him if you can't put it off till after dinner?"
"Oh, no, thanks very much. I'm sure Lord Marshmoreton wouldn't
dream of it."
She passed on with a pleasant smile. When he had recovered from the
effect of this Reggie proceeded slowly to the upper level to meet
his step-mother.