Beaumanoir, in courteously promising that her request should be attended to, regarded her with a wan smile. "You will have a companion—that is, if you do not mind Mr. Forsyth sharing the station brougham with you," he added. "Alec has to go to London to-morrow on my business—leases at the solicitors’, isn’t it?" He turned for confirmation to Forsyth, who, with General Sadgrove, had been strolling with him on the terrace. "Yes, leases at the solicitors’," replied the private secretary, flushing slightly. The General looked indifferent. "Really?" said the lady. "There must be a lot of that sort of thing to see to just now, I suppose. Of course, I shall be delighted to have Mr. Forsyth’s escort, provided he drops me at Bond Street. I cannot have a critical male person following me across my tailor’s sacred threshold." She shook a gay finger at the party and disappeared into one of the French windows—a vision of dainty _chiffons_ and rustling silks. "She’s gone to put her prayer-book away," laughed Forsyth, in the nervous manner of one wishing to cover an awkward situation. "She needs one," muttered the General under his mustache, shooting a furtive glance at his nephew. Beaumanoir said nothing, and the three paced on, hardly speaking, till it was time to dress for dinner. Since the General’s return from town on the day of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton’s headache, not exactly a coolness, but a constraint, had sprung up between them. A suspicion of cross-purposes was in the air, which kept them silent when all together, but communicative enough when any two of them were alone in solitary places. It was so now, for the General waited till the Duke had left them to go up to his dressing-room before he remarked in a tone of grim humor: "I told you that you would have her for a traveling companion." "I don’t anticipate much pleasure from the journey," Forsyth replied, gloomily, and reddening under the searching gaze with which his uncle raked him. But with the exception of the short drive to the station, during which Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was unusually preoccupied, he was spared the uncongenial _tête-à-tête_ he had expected. When the train came in the fair American said chaffingly that she knew he was dying to smoke—that, anyhow, she was in a mood for meditation herself, and intended to indulge it in the seclusion of a "ladies’ compartment." Forsyth responded with the barest protest demanded by courtesy, and went away to a smoking-carriage, much relieved. He saw her again at St. Pancras; indeed, he contrived to be near enough to overhear the direction to an address in Bond Street which she gave to her cabman, but he noticed the not unexpected fact that here in London she had no desire for his society. She had hurried into the vehicle without looking round for him, and was driven away at a pace that betokened special instructions to the driver.