“Clitheroe—­Gubbins; what on earth has that to do with it?  That would be Mrs. Gubbins:  this is Lady Meadowcroft.”

“The same article, as the shopmen say—­only under a different name.  A year or two later I read a notice in the Times that ’I, Ivor de Courcy Meadowcroft, of The Laurels, Middleston, Mayor-elect of the Borough of Middleston, hereby give notice, that I have this day discontinued the use of the name Peter Gubbins, by which I was formerly known, and have assumed in lieu thereof the style and title of Ivor de Courcy Meadowcroft, by which I desire in future to be known.’

“A month or two later, again I happened to light upon a notice in the Telegraph that the Prince of Wales had opened a new hospital for incurables at Middleston, and that the Mayor, Mr. Ivor Meadowcroft, had received an intimation of Her Majesty’s intention of conferring upon him the honour of knighthood.  Now what do you make of it?”

“Putting two and two together,” I answered, with my eye on our subject, “and taking into consideration the lady’s face and manner, I should incline to suspect that she was the daughter of a poor parson, with the usual large family in inverse proportion to his means.  That she unexpectedly made a good match with a very wealthy manufacturer who had raised himself; and that she was puffed up accordingly with a sense of self-importance.”

“Exactly.  He is a millionaire, or something very like it; and, being an ambitious girl, as she understands ambition, she got him to stand for the mayoralty, I don’t doubt, in the year when the Prince of Wales was going to open the Royal Incurables, on purpose to secure him the chance of a knighthood.  Then she said, very reasonably, ‘I won’t be Lady Gubbins—­Sir Peter Gubbins!’ There’s an aristocratic name for you!—­and, by a stroke of his pen, he straightway dis-Gubbinised himself, and emerged as Sir Ivor de Courcy Meadowcroft.”

“Really, Hilda, you know everything about everybody!  And what do you suppose they’re going to India for?”

“Now, you’ve asked me a hard one.  I haven’t the faintest notion. . . .  And yet . . . let me think.  How is this for a conjecture?  Sir Ivor is interested in steel rails, I believe, and in railway plant generally.  I’m almost sure I’ve seen his name in connection with steel rails in reports of public meetings.  There’s a new Government railway now being built on the Nepaul frontier—­one of these strategic railways, I think they call them—­it’s mentioned in the papers we got at Aden.  He might be going out for that.  We can watch his conversation, and see what part of India he talks about.”

“They don’t seem inclined to give us much chance of talking,” I objected.

“No; they are very exclusive.  But I’m very exclusive, too.  And I mean to give them a touch of my exclusiveness.  I venture to predict that, before we reach Bombay, they’ll be going down on their knees and imploring us to travel with them.”