"I don't want to disparage the golfing powers of either Bobby or Madge," Napier said, "but what do you say to a round with me after tea?"
She looked at him oddly. It struck Napier that she didn't apply her formula, "You are very kind." He was conscious of a slight embarrassment under her scrutiny.
"You say that because Lady McIntyre asked you to."
Whereat Miss Greta lowered her eyes. "What should I do about Nan Ellis?" she said.
"Oh, we've thought of that. Mr. Grant will look after her while you and I--" he smiled. "Shall we say half-past five?"
The china-blue eyes turned to the open door and to the gaitered rotundity approaching--Sir William coming up from the stable. "Half-past five, then," she murmured. On her way to the schoolroom she caught up a book with the air of one who finds at last a boon long sought.
Sir William was inclined to be facetious over "catching you and the Incomparable One. I've always known the day would come...."
Instead of tackling the letters, he went on with his absurd chaffing.
"The fact is," Napier said, when he had shut the library door, "I've been wanting to say a word about this lady."
"What's up?" Sir William was still smiling roguishly.
"I'm thinking of the matter of the translation. Surely an official document of that description ought not to be in chance hands."
What did he mean? It hadn't been in chance hands.
It had been in the hands of Miss von Schwarzenberg. And Miss von Schwarzenberg, Napier reminded his chief, was an outsider. Or, if not that (hastily he readjusted himself to the McIntyre view) she was at all events outside the official circle.
"My dear boy, of course she is. She is a woman. And beyond knowing an English equivalent for a German word, she understands as much about the bearing of a paper on International Commerce--as much as that Aberdeen terrier."
"I think, sir, you underrate Miss von Schwarzenberg's intelligence."
"Or maybe you," said Sir William, wrinkling his little nose with silent laughter, "maybe you underrate the Aberdeen's."
Miss Greta did not produce her friend at tea time. "Nan doesn't care about tea. Americans don't, you know. She will meet us at the links."
If Miss Ellis didn't "take to" tea, she "took to" golf "as if she'd been a born Scot," according to Julian. Why on earth Miss von Schwarzenberg should want to go on trying when the power to hit a ball was so obviously not among her many gifts, passed Napier's understanding. It struck him as rather nice of her that she wasn't the least disturbed by Nan's swinging efficiency. Was that because it got rid of her?--put wide stretches of sand and gorse between the ill-matched couples? Napier would hardly have stood it so amiably but for Julian's disarming frankness as to the satisfaction he, at all events, was deriving from the arrangement.