“Not at all, my dear Roxbury.  That’s just where you’re wrong.  They don’t know Roxbury the first.  I’ve gone over it all with Edith.  She’s just crazy to get into the Odell-Carney set.  I regret to say that they have failed to notice the Medcrofts up to this time.  Secretly, Edith has ambitions.  She has gone to the Lord Mayor’s dinners and to the Royal Antiquarians and to Sir John Rodney’s and a lot of other functions on the outer rim, but she’s never been able to break through the crust and taste the real sweets of London society.  My dear Roxbury, the Odell-Carneys entertain the nobility without compunction, and they’ve been known to hobnob with royalty.  Mrs. Odell-Carney was a Lady Somebody-or-other before she married the second time.  She’s terribly smart, Roxbury.”

“How, in the name of heaven, do they happen to be hobnobbing, as you call it, with the Rodneys, may I ask?”

“Well, it seems that Odell-Carney is promoting a new South African mining venture.  I have it from Freddie Ulstervelt that he’s trying to sell something like a million shares to Mr. Rodney, who has loads of money that came from real mines in the Far West.  He’d never be such a fool as to sink a million in South Africa, you know, but he’s just clever enough to see the advantage of keeping Odell-Carney in tow, as it were.  It means a great deal to Mrs. Rodney, don’t you know, Roxbury, to be able to say that she toured with the Odell-Carneys.  Freddie says that Cousin Alfred is talking in a very diplomatic manner of going on to London in August to look fully into the master.  It is understood that the Rodneys are to be the guests of the Odell-Carneys while in London.  It won’t be the season, of course, so there won’t be much of a commotion in the smart set.  It is our dear Edith’s desire to slip into the charmed circle through the rift that the Rodneys make.  Do you comprehend?”

They were seated side by side in the corner of the compartment, his broad back screening her as much as possible from the persistent glances of Freddie Ulstervelt, who was nobly striving to confine his attentions to Katherine.  Brock’s eyes were devouring her exquisite face with a greediness that might have caused her some uneasiness if there had not been something pleasantly agreeable in his way of doing it.

“Yes—­faintly,” he replied, after an almost imperceptible conflict between the senses of sight and hearing.  “But how does she intend to explain me away?  I’ll be a dreadful skeleton in her closet if it comes to that.  When she is obliged to produce the real Roxbury, what then?”

“She’s thought it all out, Roxbury,” said Constance severely but almost inaudibly.  “I’m sure Freddie heard part of what you said.  Do be careful.  She’s going to reveal the whole plot to Mrs. Odell-Carney just as soon as Roxbury gives the word—­treating it as a very clever and necessary ruse, don’t you see.  Mrs. Odell-Carney will be implored to aid in the deception for a few days, and she’ll consent, because she’s really quite a bit of a sport.  At the psychological moment the Rodneys will be told.  That places Mrs. Odell-Carney in the position of being an abettor or accomplice:  she’s had the distinction of being a sharer in a most glorious piece of strategy.  Don’t you see how charmingly it will all work in the end?”