Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/39

Rh "There's much, in this country and age," he replied in an off-hand manner, "to be said about that." The present, however, was not the time to say it all; so he said something else instead, accompanying this with a smile that signified sufficiency. "To my friends, I need scarcely remark to you, I'm all the friend."

She had meanwhile seen the butler reappear by the door that opened to the terrace, and though the high, bleak, impersonal approach of this functionary was ever, and more and more at every step, a process to defy interpretation, long practice evidently now enabled her to suggest, as she turned again to her fellow-visitor, a reading of it. "It's the friend then clearly who's wanted in the park."

She might, by the,way Banks looked at her, have snatched from his hand a missive addressed to another; though while he addressed himself to her companion he allowed for her indecorum sufficiently to take it up where she had left it. "By her ladyship, my lord, who sends to hope you'll join them below the terrace."

"Ah, Grace hopes," said Lady Sandgate