“I think we’d better keep the taxi, Doris.  Then you and I can go back to the hotel together.  We can’t force ourselves upon Lady Dunstable like this, my dear.  I’d better go and tell someone to pack my things.  But we must, of course, wait and see Lady Dunstable—­though how you will explain your coming, and get yourself—­and me—­out of this absurd predicament, I cannot even pretend to imagine!”

Doris sat down—­wearily.

“Don’t keep the taxi, Arthur.  I assure you Lady Dunstable will be very glad to keep both me—­and my bag.  Or if she won’t—­Lord Dunstable will.”

Meadows came nearer—­bent down to study her tired face.

“There’s some mystery, of course, Doris, in all this!  Aren’t you going to tell me what it means?”

His wife’s pale cheeks flushed.

“I would have told you—­if you’d been the least bit glad to see me!  But—­if you don’t pay the taxi, Arthur, it will run up like anything!”

She pointed peremptorily to the ticking vehicle and the impatient driver.  Meadows went mechanically, paid the driver, shouldered the bag, and carried it into the hall of the Lodge.  He then perceived that two grinning and evidently inquisitive footmen, waiting in the hall for anything that might turn up for them to do, had been watching the whole scene—­the arrival of the taxi, and the meeting between the unknown lady and himself, through a side window.

Burning to box someone’s ears, Meadows loftily gave the bag to one of them with instructions that it should be taken to his room, and then turned to rejoin his wife.

As he crossed the gravel in front of the house, his mind ran through all possible hypotheses.  But he was entirely without a clue—­except the clue of jealousy.  He could not hide from himself that Doris had been jealous of Lady Dunstable, and had perhaps been hurt by his rather too numerous incursions into the great world without her, his apparent readiness to desert her for cleverer women.  “Little goose!—­as if I ever cared twopence for any of them!”—­he thought angrily.  “And now she makes us both laughing-stocks!”

And yet, Doris being Doris—­a proud, self-contained, well-bred little person, particularly sensitive to ridicule—­the whole proceeding became the more incredible the more he faced it.

One o’clock!—­striking from the church tower in the valley!  He hurried towards the slight figure on the distant seat.  Lady Dunstable might return at any moment.  He foresaw the encounter—­the great lady’s insolence—­Doris’s humiliation—­and his own.  Well, at least let him agree with Doris on a common story, before his hostess arrived.

He sped across the grass, very conscious, as he approached the seat, of Doris’s drooping look and attitude.  Travelling all those hours!—­and no doubt without any proper breakfast!  However Lady Dunstable might behave, he would carry Doris into the Lodge directly, and have her properly looked after.  Miss Field and he would see to that.