"We are all the more grateful to you," Lady Margaret assured him. "Letitia and I always bore one another terribly. A married sister, you know, feels rather like the cuckoo returning to the discarded nest."
"One hates other people's liberty so much," Letitia sighed.
"I should have thought liberty was a state very easy to acquire," David Thain observed didactically.
"That is because you come from a land where all the women are clever and the men tolerant," Letitia replied. "Where is that husband of yours, Margaret?"
"I am ashamed to say," her sister confessed, "that he stayed down in the morning room while Gossett fetched him a glass of sherry. Look at him now," she added, as Sir Robert entered the room unannounced and came smiling towards them. "How can I have any faith in a husband like that. Doesn't he look as though the only thing that could trouble him in life was that he hadn't been able to get here a few minutes earlier!"
"Given away, eh?" the newcomer groaned, as he kissed Letitia's fingers. "How are you, Mr. Thain? Your country is entirely to blame for my habits. I got so into the habit of drinking cocktails while I was over there that I really prefer my aperitif to my wine at dinner."
Sir Robert, who had discovered within the last few days exactly where Mr. David Thain stood amongst the list of American multi-millionaires, drew this very distinguished person a little on one side to ask about a railway. Then the Marquis made his appearance, and immediately afterwards the remaining guests. David Thain, of whom many of the morning papers, during the last few days, had found something to say, found himself almost insinuated into the position of favoured guest. He took Mrs. Honeywell--a dark and rather tired-looking lady--in to dinner, but he sat at Letitia's left hand, and she gave him a good deal of her attention.
"You know everybody, don't you, Mr. Thain?" she asked him, soon after they had taken their places.
"Except the gentleman on your right," he answered.
"His name," she whispered, "is Lord Charles Grantham. He is the son of the Duke of Leicester, who is, between ourselves, almost as wicked a duke as my father is a marquis. Fortunately, however, his mother left him a fortune. Do you notice how thoughtful he looks?"