a grim smile, “I’ll take you on, soon as you’ve finished your tea. And,” he added, fumbling for his cigar-case, “I’ll try and not frighten you.”
Sybil rose at once, and together they strolled along the terrace to a distance from the chatter round the tea-table, which had drowned their incipient confidences. When they were quite out of earshot Sybil turned and confronted the General, and the lighter tone with which she had “played” him was lacking now.
“Tell me,” she said gravely, “why Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is so anxious to kill my poor cousin and spoil that charming idyll.”
“Mrs. Talmage Eglinton!” stammered the General. “How on earth did you know that?”
“How did I know!” his new coadjutor repeated with scorn. “In the same way that she must know herself that you know, you dear silly old man. Because of the absolutely absurd invitation to her to come and stay here at Prior’s Tarrant without rhyme or reason.”
And then, when General Sadgrove had recovered from the shock of finding that he was not quite inscrutable, they talked, very seriously, for upwards of half an hour.
[216]
