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 kinswoman, Sybil Hanbury, by asking her down while Alec Forsyth was there, and as that was impossible without a chaperon, he, the General, had suggested a small houseparty with Mrs. Sadgrove and Mrs. Sherman to play propriety.

Mrs. Sherman evinced unfeigned delight at the prospect, her only anxiety being as to the length of the visit. Her husband, the Senator, with his precious charge of Treasury Bonds, was due in a week, and she would wish to be in London to receive him on arrival. Leonie, too, who did not seem to share her mother’s enthusiasm for accepting the ducal hospitality, pressed the point with some pertinacity. The General, however, was equal to the occasion.

“No dates were mentioned,” he said, looking his guests guilelessly in the face. “But as his Grace alluded to the pleasure with which he anticipated making the Senator’s acquaintance, I presume he takes it for granted that your husband will go straight to Prior’s Tarrant from Liverpool.”

Mrs. Sherman and Leonie exchanged glances, as though to say that that settled the matter, as indeed, from their point of view,