“I really think it must be about seventy or eighty by this time,” says Mr. Gower thoughtfully.  “However, it doesn’t matter about that.  She’ll be awfully pleased to get the five pounds.  One likes five pounds, you know, when one has lost all hope of ever getting it.”

“Oh, go away!” says Tita.  “You are a horrid boy!”

CHAPTER VI.

HOW ALL THE HOUSE PARTY AT OAKDEAN GROW FRIVOLOUS IN THE ABSENCE OF THE LORD AND MASTER; AND HOW MRS. BETHUNE ENCOURAGES A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK; AND HOW, AFTER MANY ESCAPES, TITA IS CAUGHT AT LAST.

“She has gone to bed,” says Tita, reappearing in the drawing-room just as the clock strikes nine on the following evening.

“Thank goodness!” says Mrs. Chichester, sotto voce, at which Captain Marryatt laughs.

“She is not very ill, I hope?” says Margaret.

“Oh no!  A mere headache.”

“Bile!” suggests Mr. Gower prettily.

Tita looks angrily at him.

“What a hideous word that is!” says Mrs. Bethune, with a sneer.  “It ought to be expunged from every decent dictionary.  Fortunately,” with a rather insolent glance at Randal, who is so openly a friend of Tita’s, “very few people use it—­in civilized society.”

“And I’m one of them,” says the young man, with deep self-gratulation.  “I like to be in a minority—­so choice, you know; so distinguished!  But what, really,” turning to Tita, “is the matter with poor, dear old auntie?”

“A chill, I should think,” returns Tita severely.  Has he forgotten all about yesterday’s escapade?  “She seemed to me very wet when she got home last evening.”

“She was soaking,” says Mr. Gower.  “She didn’t show it much, because when the water was rising in that wretched old boat—­really, you know, Maurice ought to put respectable boats on his lake—­she pulled up her——­”

“Randal!”

“Well, she did!” says Randal, unabashed.  “Don’t glare at me! I didn’t pull up anything!  I’d nothing to pull up, but she——­” Here Mr. Gower gives way to wild mirth.  “Oh, if you’d seen her!” says he—­“such spindleshanks!”

At this Marryatt gets behind him, draws a silken chair-back over his face, thus mercifully putting an end to his spoken recollections.

“If I were you, Tita, I should order Randal off to bed,” says Margaret, who, I regret to say, is laughing.  “He has been up quite long enough for a child of his years.”

“Well—­but, really, what is the matter with Miss Gower?” asks somebody.

“Temper,” puts in Mrs. Bethune, with a shrug.

She is leaning back in an easy-chair, feeling and looking distinctly vexed.  Maurice is away.  This morning he had started for town to meet his mother, and bring her back with him for a short stay at Oakdean.  He had gone away directly after breakfast, telling them all he would be home by the evening if possible; but he feared the journey would be too long for his mother, and that probably she would spend the night in town.  In the meantime, if anything in the shape of a murder or an elopement should occur, they might telegraph to Claridge’s.  He had then turned and smiled at Tita.