"Enough to go out with!" The player, Captain Forsythe, counted his score. "Shall we say another, Steele?"
"Not for me!" John Steele placed his cue in the rack. "I'm out for a breath of air." And he stepped through an open French window, leading upon a balcony that almost spanned the rear of the house.
"Mr. Steele seems to be rather out of form to-night." A plump, short woman with doll-like eyes, who had been watching the game from a seat near-by, now spoke, with subtle meaning in her accents.
"Quite so. Can't really understand it. Steele can put up a deuced strong game, don't you know, but to-night--Did you notice how he failed at one of the easiest shots?"
"That was when Jocelyn Wray looked in," murmured the other.
"Miss Wray!" Captain Forsythe set the balls for a practice shot. "Well, Steele's a splendid chap," he said irrelevantly.
"Not a great while; he's rather a new man, don't you know. But Sir Charles is quite democratic; took him up, well, as one might in Australia, without," good-naturedly, "inquiring into his family or his antecedents, or all that sort of rubbish."
"Indeed?" Her voice was non-committal. "But as for its being rubbish--"
"Oh, I say, Mrs. Nallis!" The other's tone was expostulating. "Strong man; splendid sort of chap, Steele! A jolly good athlete, too! Witness our little fencing contest of this morning!"
"True! You are an evident admirer of Mr. Steele, Captain Forsythe. And if I am not mistaken," she laughed, "others share your opinion. Sir Charles, for example, and Jocelyn Wray. She didn't look displeased this morning, did she? When the contest was over, I mean. Not that I would imply--of course, her position and his--so far apart from a social standpoint." A retort of some kind seemed about to spring from the listener's lips but she did not give him the opportunity to speak; went on: "Besides, when I came here, I understood a marriage had been, or was about to be arranged between Sir Charles' niece and--"
"Not interrupting a bit of gossip, I trust?" a cynical voice inquired; at the same time a third person, who had quietly approached, paused to regard them.
"Ah, Lord Ronsdale!" Just for an instant the lady was disconcerted. "Gossip?" She repeated in a tone that meant: "How can you?"