“Oh yes. Fred likes it as well as anywhere else, and I like it a good deal better than most. He doesn’t mind so very much, you know, where he is. He’s always living in his books, and so real places don’t count.” She gave a little sigh. “But they do count with me.” “I’m enjoying it enormously,” he said, “it’s flinging the years off from me.” “Oh, I know,” she answered, “but I’m almost afraid of it for that very reason. It’s so very—what shall I say—champagney, that one doesn’t know what one will do next. Sometimes one’s spirits are so high that one positively longs to be depressed. Why, you’d be amazed at some of the things people, quite ordinary respectable people, do when they are down here.” As they turned in at the gate she stopped and laughed. “Take care, Mr. Maradick,” she said, “I can see that you are caught in the toils; it’s very dangerous for us, you know, at our time of life.” And she left him, laughing. CHAPTER VIII THEY ALL EAT CHICKEN IN THE GORSE AND FLY BEFORE THE STORM “It’s the most ripping rag,” said Tony, as he watched people climb into the wagonette. “Things,” he added, “will probably happen.” Lady Gale herself, as she watched them arrange themselves, had her doubts; she knew, as very few women in England knew, how to make things go, and no situation had ever been too much for her, but the day was dreadfully hot and there were, as she vaguely put it to herself, “things in the air.” What these things were, she could not, as yet, decide; but she hoped that the afternoon would reveal them to her, that it would, indeed, show a good deal that this last week had caused her to wonder about. The chief reasons for alarm were the Maradicks and Mrs. Lawrence, without them it would have been quite a family party; Alice, Rupert, Tony, and herself. She wondered a little why she had asked the others. She had wanted to invite Maradick, partly because she liked the man for himself and partly for Tony’s sake; then, too, he held the key to Tony now. He knew better than any of the others what the boy was doing; he was standing guard. And so then, of course, she had to ask Mrs. Maradick. She didn’t like the little woman, there was no question about that, but you couldn’t ask one without the other. And then she had to give her some one with whom to pair off, and so she had asked Mrs. Lawrence; and there you were. But it wasn’t only because of the Maradicks that the air was thundery; the Lesters had quarrelled again. He sat in the wagonette with his lips tightly closed and his eyes staring straight in front of him right through Mrs. Maradick as though she were non-existent. And Mrs. Lester was holding her head very high and her cheeks were flushed. Oh! they would both be difficult.