Mrs. Sherman evinced unfeigned delight at the prospect, her only anxiety being as to the length of the visit. Her husband, the Senator, with his precious charge of Treasury Bonds, was due in a week, and she would wish to be in London to receive him on arrival. Leonie, too, who did not seem to share her mother’s enthusiasm for accepting the ducal hospitality, pressed the point with some pertinacity. The General, however, was equal to the occasion. "No dates were mentioned," he said, looking his guests guilelessly in the face. "But as his Grace alluded to the pleasure with which he anticipated making the Senator’s acquaintance, I presume he takes it for granted that your husband will go straight to Prior’s Tarrant from Liverpool." Mrs. Sherman and Leonie exchanged glances, as though to say that that settled the matter, as indeed, from their point of view, it did. Senator Leonidas Sherman was the kindest of husbands and the most indulgent of fathers; but if he had landed in England and found that he had been deprived of the chance of staying with a duke, he would have made things hum for all concerned. "Beaumanoir, having lived in your country, has a warm corner in his heart for all Americans," said the General. "And talking of Americans, my dear," he proceeded, addressing his wife, "I shouldn’t like to be uncivil to Mrs. Talmage Eglinton. As we are all going out of town, what do you say to returning her call this afternoon? If you are not otherwise engaged, I will order the carriage for four o’clock." When the General—who never in his life had paid a duty call without grumbling—spoke like that Mrs. Sadgrove knew what was expected of her, and did it. She had not the faintest inkling of his reasons for sudden politeness to a pushing woman whom they all disliked. In the old days, when she had gone out into camp with her husband, and had sat silent in the tent amid the coming and going of troopers and mysterious spies, she had always divined when a great _coup_, resulting in the death or capture of some notorious malefactor, was vexing his brain. She had watched the spreading of the net without troubling him with questions about the meshes. So now, though inwardly disquieted by this recrudescence of the professional instinct, she abstained from worrying him, confident that the veteran would achieve his purpose as ruthlessly as the zealous young captain of thirty years ago.