Darby suggested Marienbad and Homburg slyly. He thought the German army invalided might congest Harrogate. Matilda looked at Dearest George, feeling uncertain until she consulted him. George Freyne got up and shut the window sharply. Then he remarked to Stafford that he was glad the wireless station was now properly guarded. Anyone might have reached it before.
"When I saw you over there yesterday, Stafford, I said to you----"
Gheena listened with such elaborate carelessness that it was impossible to avoid nothing what she was doing.
"And, by the way, how did you get in?" added George Freyne fussily.
"I had some business there. Hanly charged my battery for me, too. Yes, I knew the guard. I thought they'd put on men soon."
Mrs. Weston, knitting rapidly, began to talk about the hunting in rapturous tones. It was actually going to commence next day, and she hoped her bay horse would be as good as he looked, the darling.
"If he only gets as far as his looks go," said Darby absently.
Miss O'Toole was questioning Basil Stafford ruthlessly--as to his age, birthplace and nationality. These items she wrote down in a small note-book, where, she said pointedly, she kept a register of fit men. Then quite suddenly she asked a question in laboured German.
"Hanoverian or Platt?" asked Stafford amiably. "I should like to know which you'd understand best before I answer. When I was at Berlin I practised both."
Then the mocking look died out of his face, which reddened slowly.
Gheena escaped from the heat to the doorstep. It was one of those autumn nights which are as oppressive as June with none of its lightness. The air was murkily hot, and a fog was stealing into the hollows; through the grey haze one could hear the sea boom at the end of the park.
Everyone began to put up their knitting. The O'Haras' wagonette, poised haughtily high over a dejected grey cob, came round to the door, the weary beast walking with the bitter certainty of seven miles to go and a feed of hay at its end.
Miss O'Toole, trailing her ball of wool, came stealthily towards Gheena.
"I should ... watch him," she breathed fiercely. "Wireless here, and a coast for submarines, and--what is he doing?"
Miss O'Toole compared drains to trenches with a sort of disdain.