Upstairs from her window Clara also was gazing along the road where Borrowdean had disappeared. And Borrowdean himself was puzzling over a third telegram which Mannering had carelessly passed on to him with his own, and which, although it was clearly addressed to Mannering, he had, after a few minutes' hesitation, opened. It had been handed in at the Strand Post-office. "I must see you this week.--Blanche." A few hours later, on his arrival in London, Borrowdean repeated this message to Mannering from the same post-office, and quietly tearing up the original went down to the House. "I cannot tell," he reported to his chief, "whether we have succeeded or not. In a fortnight or less we shall know." CHAPTER IV THE DUCHESS ASKS A QUESTION Clara stepped through the high French window, and with skirts a little raised crossed the lawn. Lindsay, who was following her, stopped to light a cigarette. "We're getting frightfully modern," she remarked, turning and waiting for him. "Mrs. Handsell and I ought to have come out here, and you and uncle ought to have stayed and yawned at one another over the dinner-table." "You have an excellent preceptress--in modernity," he remarked. "May I?" "If you mean smoke, of course you may," she answered. "But you may not say or think horrid things about my best friend. She's a dear, wonderful woman, and I'm sure uncle has not been like the same man since she came." "I'm glad you appreciate that," he answered. "Do you honestly think he's any the better for it?" "I think he's immensely improved," she answered. "He doesn't grub about by himself nearly so much, and he's had his hair cut. I'm sure he looks years younger." "Do you think that he seems quite as contented?" "Contented!" she repeated, scornfully. "That's just like you, Richard. He hasn't any right to be contented. No one has. It is the one absolutely fatal state." He stretched himself out upon, the seat, and frowned. "You're picking up some strange ideas, Clara," he remarked. "Well, if I am, that's better than being contented to all eternity with the old ones," she replied. "Mrs. Handsell is doing us all no end of good. She makes us think! We all ought to think, Richard." "What on earth for?" "You are really hopeless," she murmured. "So bucolic--" "Thanks," he interrupted. "I seem to recognize the inspiration. I hate that woman." "My dear Richard!" she exclaimed. "Well, I do!" he persisted. "When she first came she was all right. That fellow Borrowdean seems to have done all the mischief." "Poor Sir Leslie!" she exclaimed, demurely. "I thought him so delightful." "Obviously," he replied. "I didn't. I hate a fellow who doesn't do things himself, and has a way of looking on which makes you feel a perfect idiot. Neither Mr. Mannering nor Mrs. Handsell--nor you--have been the same since he was here." "I gather," she said, softly, "that you do not find us improved."