"I heard the stable clock strike," said Priscilla. "It's half-past nine."

"Very well," said Miss Lentaigne. "Good-night."

Priscilla kissed her aunt lightly on her left cheek bone. Then she held out her hand to Lady Torrington.

"You may kiss me," said the lady. "You seem to be a very quiet well behaved little girl."

Priscilla kissed Lady Torrington and then pa.s.sed on to Frank.

"Good-night, Cousin Frank," she said. "I hope you're not tired after being out in the boat, and I hope your ankle will be better tomorrow."

Her eyes still had an expression of cherubic innocence; but just as she let go Frank's hand she winked abruptly. He found as she turned away, that she had left something in his hand. He unfolded a small, much crumpled piece of blotting paper, taken, he supposed, by stealth from the writing table beside Priscilla's chair. A note was scratched with a point of a pin on the blotting paper.

"Come to the shrubbery, ten sharp. Most important. Excuse scratching. No pencil."

"Priscilla," said Lady Torrington, "is a sweet child, very subdued and modest."

Frank's attention was arrested by the silvery sweetness of the tone in which she spoke. He had a feeling that she meant to convey to Miss Lentaigne something more than her words implied. Miss Lentaigne struck a match noisily and lit another cigarette.

"She may be a little wanting in animation," said Lady Torrington, "but that is a fault which one can forgive nowadays when so many girls run into the opposite extreme and become self-a.s.sertive."

"Priscilla," said Miss Lentaigne, "is not always quite so good as she was this evening."

"You must be quite pleased that she isn't," said Lady Torrington, with a deliberate, soft smile. "With your ideas about the independence of our s.e.x I can quite understand that Priscilla, if she were always as quiet and gentle as she was this evening, would be trying, very trying."

Frank became acutely uncomfortable. He had entered the room noisily enough, hobbling on his two sticks; but neither lady seemed to be aware of his presence. He began to feel as if he were eavesdropping, listening to a conversation which he was not intended to hear. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he ought to say a formal good-night, or get out of the room as quietly as he could without calling attention to his presence. Miss Lentaigne's next remark decided him.

"Your own daughter," she said, "seems to have imbibed some of our more modern ideas. That must be a trial to you, Lady Torrington."

Frank got up and made his way out of the room without speaking.

CHAPTER XVI

To reach the corner of the shrubbery it was necessary to cross the lawn.

Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius, having lit fresh cigars, were pacing up and down in earnest conversation. Frank hobbled across their path and received a kindly greeting from his uncle.

"Well, Frank, out for a breath of fresh air before turning in? Sorry you can't join our march. Lord Torrington is just talking about your father."

"Thanks, Uncle Lucius," said Frank, "but I can't walk. There's a hammock chair in the corner. I'll sit there for a while and smoke another cigarette."

Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington walked briskly, turning each time they reached the edge of the gra.s.s and walking briskly back again. Frank realised that Priscilla, if she was to keep her appointment, must cross their track. He watched anxiously for her appearance. The stable clock struck ten. In the shadow of the verandah in front of the dining-room window Frank fancied he saw a moving figure. Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington crossed the lawn again. Half-way across they were exactly opposite the dining-room window, A few steps further on and the direct line between the window and a corner of the shrubbery lay behind them.

Priscilla seized the most favourable moment for her pa.s.sage. Just as the two men reached the point at which their backs were turned to the line of her crossing she darted forward. Half-way across she seemed to trip, hesitated for a moment and then ran on. Before the walkers reached their place of turning she was safe in a laurel bush beside Frank's chair.

"My shoe," she whispered. "It came off slap in the middle of the lawn.

I always knew those were perfectly beastly shoes. It was Sylvia Courtney made me buy them, though I told her at the time they'd never stick on, and what good are shoes if they don't Now they are sure to see it; though perhaps they won't If they don't I can make another dart and get it."

To avoid all risk of the loss of the second shoe Priscilla took it off before she started. Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius crossed the lawn again. It seemed as if one or other of them must tread on the shoe which lay on their path; but they pa.s.sed it by. Priscilla seized her chance, rushed to the middle of the lawn and returned again successfully. Then she and Frank retreated, for the sake of greater security, into the middle of the shrubbery.

"Everything's all right," said Priscilla. "I've got lots and lots of food stored away. I simply looted the dishes as they were brought out of the dining-room. Fried fish, a whole roast duck, three herrings' roes on toast, half a caramel pudding?I squeezed it into an old jam pot?and several other things. We can start at any hour we like tomorrow and it won't in the least matter whether Brannigan's is open or not. What do you say to 6 a.m.?"

"I'm not going on the bay tomorrow."

"You must. Why not?"

"Because I want to score off that old beast who sprained my ankle."

The prefect in Frank had entirely disappeared. Two days of close companionship with Priscilla erased the marks made on his character by four long years of training at Haileybury. His respect for const.i.tuted authorities had vanished. The fact that Lord Torrington was Secretary of State for War did not weigh on him for an instant. He was, as indeed boys ought to be at seventeen years of age, a primitive barbarian. He was filled with a desire for revenge on the man who had insulted and injured him.

"You don't know," he said, "what Lord Torrington is here for."

"Oh, yes, I do," said Priscilla. "I'm not quite an a.s.s. I was listening to Aunt Juliet and Lady Torrington shooting barbed arrows at each other after dinner. Aunt Juliet got rather the worst of it, I must say. Lady Torrington is one of those people whose garments smell of myrrh, aloes and ca.s.sia, and yet whose words are very swords, you know the sort I mean."

"Lord Torrington is chasing his daughter," said Frank, "who has run away from home. I vote we find her first and then help her to hide."

"Of course. That's what we're going to do. That's why we're going off in the boat tomorrow."

"But she's not on the bay," said Frank. "Miss Rutherford is too fat to be her. He said so."

"Who's talking about Miss Rutherford? She's simply sponge-hunting.

n.o.body but a fool would think she was Miss Torrington."

"Lady Isabel," said Frank. "He's a marquis."

"Anyhow she's not the escaped daughter."

"Then who is?"

"The lady spy, of course. Any one could see that at a glance."

"But she has a man with her. Lord Torrington said?"

"If you can call that thing a man," said Priscilla, "she has. That's her husband. She's run away with him and got married surrept.i.tiously, like young Lochinvar. People do that sort of thing, you know. I can't imagine where the fun comes in; but it's quite common, so I suppose it must be considered pleasant. Anyhow Sylvia Courtney says that English literature is simply stock full of most beautiful poems about people who do it; all more or less true, so there must be some attraction."

Frank made no reply. Priscilla's theory was new to him. It seemed to have a certain plausibility. He wanted to think it over before committing himself to accepting it.

"It's not a thing I'd care to do myself," said Priscilla. "But then people are so different. What strikes me as rather idiotic may be sweeter than b.u.t.ter in the mouth to somebody else. You never can tell beforehand. Anyhow we can count on Aunt Juliet as a firm ally. She can't go back on us on account of her principles."

This was another new idea to Frank. He began to feel slightly bewildered.

"The one thing she's really keen on just at present," said Priscilla, "is that women should a.s.sert their independence and not be mere tame parasites in gilded cages. That's what she said to Lady Torrington anyhow. So of course she's bound to help us all she can, so long as she doesn't know that they're married, and n.o.body does know that yet except you and me. Not that I'd be inclined to trust Aunt Juliet unless we have to; but it's a comfort to know she's there if the worst comes to the worst."

"What do you intend to do?" said Frank.

"Find them first. If we start off early tomorrow well probably get to Curraunbeg before they're up. My idea would be to hand over the young man to Miss Rutherford for a day or two. She's sure to be somewhere about and when she understands the circ.u.mstances she won't mind pretending that he, the original spy, I mean, is her husband, just for a while, until the first rancour of the pursuit has died away. She strikes me as an awfully good sort who won't mind. She may even like it Some people love being married. I can't imagine why; but they do. Anyhow I don't expect there'll be any difficulty about that part of the programme. We'll simply tranship him, tent and all, into Jimmy Kinsella's boat."