"Will you think me very discourteous," he asked, "if I send you back in a taxicab? I shall be hard pushed, as it is, to reach home before my guests." "Of course," she assented. He stood for a moment after she had taken her place in the vehicle, with her hand in his. "My visit," he whispered, "has made me very happy." She looked at him through a mist of unexpected tears. "Come to me soon," she begged a little abruptly. "I shall want you." "Early next month," he promised, "or, if you send for me, before." She seemed restless, indisposed to let him go. "I wish you weren't going away at all," she declared with unusual fervour. "I wish--Come back with me now, won't you? Do!" For a moment he hesitated. He felt an extraordinary impulse to throw everything on one side and accept her invitation. The crisis passed, however, before he could yield. Marcia, with a little laugh, became her normal self. "What an idiot I am!" she exclaimed good-humouredly. "Of course, you must get down to Mandeleys as quickly as you can. Good-by!" She threw herself back in the corner of the taxicab and waved her farewells. The Marquis stood for a moment bareheaded upon the pavement. He watched the vehicle until it became lost in the stream of traffic. The impulse of a few moments ago was stronger than ever, linked now, too, with an intolerable sense of depression. It was with an extraordinary effort of will that he took his place in his own car and motioned the chauffeur to proceed. CHAPTER XXIX The Duchess walked with Letitia in the high-walled garden at Mandeleys, on the morning after her arrival. She appeared to be in a remarkably good temper. "I have not the least intention of boring myself, my dear Letitia," she said, in reply to some conventional remark of her niece's. "So long as I get plenty of fresh air during the day, good plain food, and my bridge between tea and dinner, I am always contented. Let me see," she went on, coming to a standstill and pointing with her stick to the little belt of tall elm trees and the fir plantation behind, "Broomleys is that way, isn't it? Yes, I can see the house." Letitia nodded, but only glanced in the direction her aunt indicated. "And Mr. Thain? Do you find him a pleasant neighbour?" Letitia looked deliberately the other way. It was just as well that her aunt should not see the flash in her eyes. "We do not see much of him," she replied. "He gallops round the park every day like a lunatic, and he spends a great deal of time, I think, in his car." "My dear," the Duchess said impressively, "David Thain may have his peculiarities, but he is really a most simple and sincere person. I was attracted to him upon the steamer simply because of his shyness, and a good thing for you, dear, that I was. It must make quite a difference to have Broomleys properly let to a man who can pay a good rent for it."