The Wicked Marquis Part 47

He smiled.

"I am not so sure," he confessed, "that I should consider England quite so much of a sporting country as she thinks herself."

"What heresy!" the Marquis exclaimed, leaning forward.

"Of course, I didn't know that I was going to be overheard," David said good-humouredly, "but I must stick to it. I mean, of course, sport as apart from games."

"Shooting?" the Marquis queried.

"I am afraid I don't consider that shooting at birds, half of them hand-reared, is much of a sport," David continued. "Have you ever tried pig-sticking, or lying on the edge of a mountain after three hours' tramp, watching for the snout of a bear?"

Let.i.tia had broken off her conversation with Lord Charles and was leaning a little forward. The Marquis nodded sympathetically.

"Hunting, then?"

David smiled.

"You gallop over a pastoral country on a highly-trained animal, with a pack of a.s.sistant hounds to destroy one miserable, verminous creature,"

he said. "Of course, you take risks now and then, and the whole thing looks exceedingly nice on a Christmas card, but for thrills, for real, intense excitement, I prefer the mountain ledge and the bear, or the rounding up of a herd of wild elephants."

"Mr. Thain preserves the instincts of the savage," the d.u.c.h.ess observed, as she sipped her wine. "Perhaps he may be right.

Civilisation certainly tends to emasculate sport."

"The sports to which Mr. Thain has alluded," the Marquis pointed out, "are the sports of the stay-at-home Englishman. Most of our younger generation--those whose careers permitted of it--have tried their hand at big game shooting. I myself," he continued reminiscently, "have never felt quite the same with a shotgun and a stream of pheasants, since a very wonderful three weeks I had in my youth, tiger hunting in India.--I see that Let.i.tia is trying to catch your eye, Caroline."

The women left the room in a little group, their figures merging almost into indistinctness as they pa.s.sed out of the lighted zone. David's eyes followed Let.i.tia until she had disappeared. Then he was conscious that a servant was standing with a note on a salver by his side.

"This has been sent down from Broomleys, sir," the man explained.

David took it and felt a sudden sinking of the heart. The envelope was thin, square and of common type, the writing was painstaking but irregular. There was a smudge on one corner, a blot on another. David glanced at the Marquis, who nodded and immediately commenced a conversation with Grantham. He tore open his message and read it:

"The time has arrived. I wait for you here."

He crushed the half-sheet of notepaper in his fingers and then dropped it into his pocket.

"There is no answer," he told the servant.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

Grantham, who had been unusually silent throughout the service of dinner, slipped away from the room a few minutes before the other men.

He found Let.i.tia arranging a bridge table, and drew her a little on one side.

"Let.i.tia," he said, "I am annoyed."

"My dear Charles," she replied, "was anything ever more obvious!"

"You perhaps do not realise," he continued, "that you are the cause."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well?"

"In the first place," he complained, "you are not wearing my ring."

"I thought I told you," she reminded him, "that I would prefer not to until we formally announced our engagement."

"Why on earth shouldn't we do that at once--this evening?" he suggested. "I can see no reason for delay."

"I, on the other hand, have a fancy to wait," she replied carelessly, "at least until your visit here is over.

"Your hesitation is scarcely flattering," he remarked with some irritation.

"Is there anything else you wish to say?" she enquired. "I really must get out those bridge markers."

He began to show signs of temper. Watching him closely for the first time, Let.i.tia decided that he had most unpleasant-looking eyes.

"I should like to know the subject of your conversation with that Thain fellow when I came in this evening," he demanded.

"I am sorry," she said coolly. "We were speaking upon a private subject."

The anger in his eyes became more evident.

"Private subject? You mean to say that you have secrets with a fellow like that?"

"A fellow like that?" she repeated. "You don't like Mr. Thain, then?"

"Like him? I don't like him or dislike him. I think he ought to be very flattered to be here at all--and you are the last person in the world, Let.i.tia, I should have expected to find talking in whispers with him, with your heads only a few inches apart. I feel quite justified in asking what that confidence indicated."

Let.i.tia smiled sweetly but dangerously.

"And I feel quite justified," she retorted, "in refusing to answer that or any similar question. Are you going to play bridge, Charlie?"

"No!" he replied, turning away. "I am going to talk to Miss Laycey."

Sylvia was quite willing, and they soon established themselves on a settee. The d.u.c.h.ess, rather against her inclinations, was included in the bridge quartette. Let.i.tia, having disposed of her guests, strolled over towards David, who was standing with his hands behind him, gloomily studying one of the paintings.

"I must show you our Vand.y.k.es, Mr. Thain," she said, leading him a little further away. "When these wonderful oil shares of yours have made us all rich, we shall have little electric globes round our old masters. Until then, I find it produces quite a curious effect to try one of these."

She drew an electric torch from one of the drawers of an oak cabinet and flashed a small circle of light upon the picture. Thain gave a little exclamation. The face which seemed to spring suddenly into life, looking down upon them with a faintly repressed smile upon the Mandeleys mouth, presented an almost startling likeness to the Marquis.

"Fearfully alike, all our menkind, aren't they?" she observed, lowering the torch. "Come and I will show you a Lely."

They pa.s.sed further down the gallery. She looked at him a little curiously.