A moment's breathless silence was followed by a shout of laughter as the unmistakable corduroys of the handy man came into view.
"George, George, come here," exclaimed Lady Raleigh; "you must not leave this spot all day long, as Master Jack may be here at any minute. Do you understand? So go into the field at once and get the pony in, and you had better have him harnessed, all ready to go to the station. And will you go now to the post-office and see if there is a telegram? You might wait there on the chance, or at all events be in readiness. But don't go beyond the grounds, whatever you do. Dear boy, how I love him!"
And perfectly happy in the certainty of everything being properly arranged now that she had given her own orders, Lady Raleigh swept away to arrange a royal feast for the prodigal.
"Please, Mr. Digby, be I to stop here till Master Jack comes?" asked the bewildered George.
Digby laughed quietly, and re-lighted his cigarette.
"If you take my advice, George, do your work as usual, and don't bother about Master Jack. When he does come he won't dream of sending a telegram to say so. That is not Jack's way."
"Will he walk from the station?" asked Lady Joan, carelessly. The others had all strolled away; and, in the presence of the maid who was clearing away the breakfast things, she felt it incumbent upon her to say something commonplace. Digby, who, being a man, felt no such necessity, looked at the pretty little foot that was swinging backwards and forwards, and wondered why she wanted to know.
"Not he! That is not Jack's way either. He will drive up in a coach and four when we have given up expecting him, and want to know why we did not all go down to the station in a body to meet him. Then there will be a hubbub, and Jack will be king of the house again."
"And you will be dethroned?" she asked maliciously.
He heard the question, and did not notice the malice in it.
"Only until he begins to say why he has come, and the rain has spoiled the hay," he said, with another laugh.
With the peculiar good fortune which has attended the oracle of all ages, Digby's prediction came true, and Jack did come home that evening when every one had stopped talking about him, and there was a universal tendency among his brothers and sisters to avoid the topic of his arrival. It was tea-time, and the Squire was standing in the middle of the drawing-room and allowing himself to be coaxed on to his favorite subjects by certain methods known only to his children; though Lady Joan, with her accustomed shrewdness, and partly from a desire to fall into the spirit of her surroundings, however dull they might be, also lent her aid in drawing him out, and Sir Marcus became a willing and unconscious victim.