"I am going to try and make Miss Rankin as fond of me as she is of my cousin, Lady Carew."
Mrs. Rankin's face stiffened instantly. "It is exceedingly kind of you."
"Now which day can she come?" said Lady Palmer. "Let me see—Thursday or Friday will suit me best. Which would she prefer, do you think?"
Mrs. Rankin shook her head. "I am afraid neither day is possible. On Thursday we are all dining out, and on Friday she is having a friend from the country to spend the day with her."
Lady Palmer's eyes narrowed. "Next week then. Of course I am not going out now, so I am comparatively free. Which day shall we say?"
"Oh, next week?" Mrs. Rankin was sitting bolt upright now, her hands in their black kid gloves were folded in her lap. "Next week," she went on, "Sophie will be away from home, I am sorry to say, Lady Palmer. She is going down to stay with some cousins in the Isle of Wight."
"I am so sorry," Lady Palmer said gently, as Mrs. Dawson rose, and Mrs. Rankin, with an air of relief, followed her example. "Well, I must hope to be more fortunate another time." She gave Mrs. Rankin one of her flashing smiles, as she spoke.
The smile was still lingering round her lips when, Sir Anthony having escorted the visitors to their carriage, she lay back in her chair and awaited his return. "So Sophie knows," she murmured beneath her breath. "Sophie knows at least enough to put me on the track. Ah, well! I think I shall manage to have an interview with Sophie before very long, and then Lady Carew may look out."
Chapter XIX
"So—so I am disappointed!" Peggy ended with a little shiver in her voice.
Stephen Crasster, walking by her side down the Dower House drive, set his teeth together for an instant before he turned and looked down at her, his features relaxing.
"Why are you disappointed, Peggy?"
"I have told you," Peggy answered, her eyes downcast, her face looking mutinous. "I wanted you and Lorrimer to be friends—real friends!"
There was a smile in Stephen's kind eyes as he glanced at the long upcurled lashes, at the pretty, wilful mouth.
"Won't you bring Lord Chesterham to lunch with me at Talgarth to-morrow?"
Peggy clapped her hands childishly, her small face aglow, her vexation for the time being forgotten.
"I should love to. I have been wanting to see what you have been doing at Talgarth so much. I thought it was so funny you didn't ask me."
"Did you?" Stephen questioned quietly. "Well, you must come to-morrow, Peggy, you and Chesterham. I wanted Talgarth to be in apple-pie order before you saw it. Certainly to-morrow you will have to make allowances."
"That will be ever so much more fun," Peggy returned rapturously. "I don't think I like places in apple-pie order. Oh!"—a rich blush mantling her cheeks, as a motor turned in at the lodge gates. "Why I believe this is—"
"So do I," returned Stephen with a whimsical half smile.
But she was looking at the motor; her eyes were smiling at the man in the driver's seat. She hardly heard Stephen's hurried apology for a leave-taking, hardly noticed that he had left her, striding off to the side gate which was nearest to Carew village. Chesterham pulled up the car and jumped out.
"Will you come for a spin, sweetheart? What do you think of the car? Isn't she a beauty, goes like a bird—sixty miles an hour, when the police are not about."
Peggy laughed. "I should love a ride, Lorrimer; will you take me over to Talgarth to lunch to-morrow?"
"Talgarth!" His face clouded over. "That is that fellow Crasster's place, isn't it? Why do you want to go there?"
"Because it is Stephen's place," Peggy said, with an uplifting of her brows. "Don't you realize that he is a great friend of mine, Lorrimer?"
"Friend!" Chesterham laughed out, though his eyes were glittering evilly. "I don't think friendship was exactly the gift Mr. Stephen Crasster wanted from you, Peggy."
"What do you mean?" She looked up at him with big, startled eyes, in which there lay a kind of wakening consciousness. "Stephen was my friend always."
"You were blind, child," Chesterham said with a touch of roughness that Peggy had never heard in his tone before. "The man is in love with you, it is easy to see that. And you belong to me, I cannot allow this walking and talking with him."
He drew her arm through his and led her across the grass to the shrubbery, leaving the car to the chauffeur.
"You can't allow me to talk to Stephen!" Peggy's fugitive colour was coming and going. Lorrimer was looking unlike himself to-day, she thought; he was flushed, his eyes were shining. "Don't you know that Stephen has been my friend all my life, Lorrimer? As for what you say it is nonsense—nonsense," vehemently as if trying to convince herself. "He is my friend."
"Ah, well, I am going to be your friend in the future!" Chesterham said masterfully, gazing down at her. They were out of sight of every one now, screened from the house by the belt of rhododendrons that bordered the shrubbery. He clipped his arm round her and caught her to him with a sudden warmth that half alarmed the girl. "You are mine, and I cannot spare one little bit of you, one iota of your time or thought to Crasster!" he declared vehemently, punctuating his words with hot, passionate kisses.
Half frightened, wholly indignant at his roughness, Peggy managed to free herself at last.
"How dare you?" she demanded, her face scarlet, tears of anger and humiliation standing in her eyes. "How dare you?"
"How dare I?" Chesterham laughed aloud. His bronzed face had distinctly deepened in hue, his blue eyes were gleaming oddly. "Do you think I am made of milk and water, like your friend Stephen Crasster? No! No! I am flesh and blood, Peggy, and you are most adorably pretty." He moved towards her as though to take her in his arms again.
Swift as lightning Peggy eluded him, ran past him down the path. She had never seen Chesterham quite like this before. His words about Stephen Crasster had startled and shocked her; his kisses, his passion, had filled her with a sense of humiliation. In a double sense he was tearing the veil from her eyes.
When Chesterham, giving up his undignified pursuit, stepped quietly into the drive, she was scudding across the little stretch of lawn that lay between the shrubbery and the house. He shrugged his shoulders and his face was black with anger as he followed slowly.
Meanwhile, Crasster, absorbed in meditations that were none of the pleasantest, was making his way down the road to Carew village. At the top of the street near the Carew Arms, he nearly collided with no less a person than Mr. Lennox.
"The very person I was wishing to see," he exclaimed as he stopped. "I was thinking of calling in at the Carew Arms. If you have nothing better to do this evening come in and have a taste of bachelor fare with me at Talgarth. I met with a curious case the other day that I should like to talk over with you."
Mr. Lennox paused. "You are very kind, sir. But;" with a certain hesitancy in his manner, "I am afraid
