“I thought it might have been you,” said Lady Torrington, “because I seem to remember your face. I must have seen you somewhere, I suppose.”
She took no further notice of him during dinner. Lord Torrington took no notice of him at all. The dinner was long and, in spite of the fact that he had a good appetite, Frank did not enjoy himself. He was extremely glad when Lady Torrington and Miss Lentaigne left the dining-room. He was casting about for a convenient excuse for escape when Sir Lucius spoke to him.
“You and Priscilla were out on the bay all day, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Frank, “we started early and sailed about.”
“I daresay you’ll be able to give us some information then,” said Sir Lucius. “Shall I ask him a few questions, Torrington? The police sergeant said----”
“The police sergeant is a damned fool,” said Lord Torrington. “She can’t be going about in a boat. She doesn’t know how to row.”
“Frank,” said Sir Lucius, “did you and Priscilla happen to see anything of a young lady----”
“You may just as well tell him the story,” said Lord Torrington. “It’ll be in the papers in a day or two if we can’t find her.”
“Very well, Torrington. Just as you like. The fact is, Frank, that Lord Torrington is here looking for his daughter, who has----well, a week ago she disappeared.”
“Disappeared!” said Lord Torrington. “Why not say bolted?”
“According to your aunt----” said Lord Torrington.
“Oh, isn’t she?” Lord Torrington’s tone suggested that this was a distinct advantage to Frank. “According to Miss Lentaigne then, the girl has asserted her right to live her own life untrammelled by the fetters of conventionality. That’s the way she put it, isn’t it, Lentaigne?”
“Lady Isabel,” said Sir Lucius, “came over to Ireland. We know that.”
“Booked her luggage in advance from Euston,” said Lord Torrington, “under another name. I had a detective on the job, and he worried that out. Women are all going mad nowadays; though I had no notion Isabel went in for--well, the kind of thing your sister talks, Lentaigne. I thought she was religious. She used to be perpetually going to church, evensong on the Vigil of St. Euphrosyne, and that kind of thing, but I am told lots of parsons now have taken up these advanced ideas about women. It may have been in church she heard them.”