They found a nook behind the rose-bed which Priscilla held to be perfectly safe. Frank settled down on his chair. Priscilla, with her knees pulled up to her chin, sat on a cushion at his feet.
“Aunt Juliet hunted me off to bed at half-past nine,” she said. “Dastardly tyranny! And she sent Mrs. Geraghty to do my hair--not that she cared if my hair was never done, but so as to make sure that I really undressed. Plucky lot of good that was!”
The precaution had evidently been of no use at all; but neither Miss Lentaigne nor Mrs. Geraghty could have calculated on Priscilla’s roaming about the grounds in her dressing-gown.
“The reason of the tyranny,” said Priscilla, “was plain enough. Aunt Juliet was smoking a cigarette.”
“Good gracious!” said Frank. “I should never have thought your aunt smoked.”
“She doesn’t. She never did before, though she may take to it regularly now for a time. I simply told her that she oughtn’t to chew the end. No real smoker does; and I could see that she didn’t like the wads of tobacco coming off on her tongue. Besides, it was beastly waste of the cigarette. She chawed off quite as much as she smoked. You’d have thought she’d have been obliged to me for giving her the tip, but quite the contrary. She hoofed me off to bed.”
“She had to,” said Priscilla. “I don’t think she really likes it, but with her principles she simply had to. It’s part of what’s called the economic independence of women and she wants to dare the Prime Minister to put her in gaol. I don’t suppose he will, at least not unless she does something worse than that; but that’s what she hopes. You know, of course, that the Prime Minister is coming tomorrow.”
“It’s not the Prime Minister,” said Frank, “only Lord Torrington.”
“That’ll be a frightful disappointment to Aunt Juliet after sending down to Brannigan’s for those cigarettes. Rose--she’s the under housemaid--told me that. Beastly cigarettes they are, too. Rose said the footman said he wouldn’t smoke them. Ten a penny or something like that. But if Lord Torrington isn’t the Prime Minister what is Aunt Juliet doing out the long gallery?”
“Lord Torrington is rather a boss,” said Frank, “though he’s not the Prime Minister. He’s the head of the War Office.”