Suddenly there was a disturbance. The dogs sprang up and barked. There was a firm step on the gravel. Lady Dunstable, stick in hand, her short leather-bound skirt showing boots and gaiters of the most business-like description, came quickly towards the seat on which Meadows sat.
"Mr. Meadows, I summon you for a walk! Sir Luke and Mr. Frome are coming. We propose to get to the tarn and back before lunch."
The tarn was at least two miles away, a stiff climb over difficult moor. Meadows, startled from something very near sleep, looked up, and a spirit of revolt seized upon him, provoked by the masterful tone and eyes of the lady.
"Very sorry, Lady Dunstable!--but I must write some letters before luncheon."
"Oh no!--put them off! I have been thinking of what you told me yesterday of your scheme for your new set of lectures. I have a great deal to say to you about it."
"I really shouldn't be worth talking to now," laughed Meadows; "this heat has made me so sleepy. To-night--or after tea--by all means!"
"I am expecting the Duke's party at tea," she said peremptorily. "This will be my only chance to-day."
"Then let's put it off--till to-morrow!" said Meadows, as he rose, still smiling. "It is most kind of you, but I really must write my letters, and my brains are pulp. But I will escort you through the garden, if I may."
His hostess turned sharply, and walked back towards the front of the house where Sir Luke and Mr. Frome, a young and rising Under-Secretary, were waiting for her. Meadows accompanied her, but found her exceedingly ungracious. She did, however, inform him, as they followed the other two towards the exit from the garden, that she had come to the conclusion that the subject he was proposing for his second series of lectures, to be given at Dunstable House during the winter, "would never do."
"Famous Controversies of the Nineteenth Century--political and religious." The very sound of it was enough to keep people away! "What people expect from you is talk about _persons_--not ideas. Ideas are not your line!"
Meadows flushed a little. What his "line" might be, he said, he had not yet discovered. But he liked his subject, and meant to stick to it.
Lady Dunstable turned on him a pair of sarcastic eyes.