“Why should he give you any?” asked Mrs. Belgrove bluntly.

“Well, you see, dear, Garvington would never have allowed his sister to marry a nobody, unless—­”

“Unless the nobody paid for his footing.  I quite understand.  Every one knows that Agnes married the man to save her family from bankruptcy.  Poor girl!” Mrs. Belgrove sighed.  “And she loved Noel.  What a shame that she couldn’t become his wife!”

“Oh, that would have been absurd,” said Lady Garvington pettishly.  “What’s the use of Hunger marrying Thirst?  Noel has no money, just like ourselves, and if it hadn’t been for Hubert this place would have been sold long ago.  I’m telling you secrets, mind.”

“My dear, you tell me nothing that everybody doesn’t know.”

“Then what is your advice?”

“About what, my dear?”

“About what I have been telling you.  The burglar, and—­”

“I have told you before, that it is rubbish.  If a burglar does come here I hope Lord Garvington will shoot him, as I don’t want to lose my diamonds.”

“But if the burglar is Noel?”

“He won’t be Noel.  Clara Greeby has simply made a nasty suggestion which is worthy of her.  But if you’re afraid, why not get her to marry Noel?”

“He won’t have her,” said Lady Garvington dolefully.

“I know he won’t.  Still a persevering woman can do wonders, and Clara Greeby has no self-respect.  And if you think Noel is too near, get Agnes to join her husband in Pekin.”

“I think it’s Paris.”

“Well then, Paris.  She can buy new frocks.”

“Agnes doesn’t care for new frocks.  Such simple tastes she has, wanting to help the poor.  Rubbish, I call it.”

“Why, when her husband helps Lord Garvington?” asked Mrs. Belgrove artlessly.

Lady Garvington frowned.  “What horrid things you say.”

“I only repeat what every one is saying.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t care,” cried Lady Garvington recklessly, and rose to depart on some vague errand.  “I’m only in the world to look after dinners and breakfasts.  Clara Greeby’s a cat making all this fuss about—­”

“Hush!  There she is.”

Lady Garvington fluttered round, and drifted towards Miss Greeby, who had just stepped out on to the terrace.  The banker’s daughter was in a tailor-made gown with a man’s cap and a man’s gloves, and a man’s boots—­at least, as Mrs. Belgrove thought, they looked like that—­and carried a very masculine stick, more like a bludgeon than a cane.  With her ruddy complexion and ruddy hair, and piercing blue eyes, and magnificent figure—­for she really had a splendid figure in spite of Mrs. Belgrove’s depreciation—­she looked like a gigantic Norse goddess.  With a flashing display of white teeth, she came along swinging her stick, or whirling her shillalah, as Mrs. Belgrove put it, and seemed the embodiment of coarse, vigorous health.

“Taking a sun-bath?” she inquired brusquely and in a loud baritone voice.  “Very wise of you two elderly things.  I am going for a walk.”