A dreamy look came into Maud’s brown eyes.
“Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage,” she said softly.
“That wasn’t your experience, Percy, my boy,” said Lord Marshmoreton.
“They make a very good imitation,” said Lady Caroline coldly, ignoring the interruption.
Maud faced her defiantly. She looked like a princess in captivity facing her gaolers.
“I don’t care. I love him, and I always shall love him, and nothing is ever going to stop me loving him–because I love him,” she concluded a little lamely.
“Nonsense,” said Lady Caroline. “In a year from now you will have forgotten his name. Don’t you agree with me, Percy?”
“Quite,” said Lord Belpher.
“I shan’t.”
“Deuced hard things to remember, names,” said Lord Marshmoreton. “If I’ve tried once to remember that tobacconist girl’s name, I’ve tried a hundred times. I have an idea it began with an ‘L.’ Muriel or Hilda or something.”
“Within a year,” said Lady Caroline, “you will be wondering how you ever came to be so foolish. Don’t you think so, Percy?”
“Quite,” said Lord Belpher.
Lord Marshmoreton turned on him irritably.
“Good God, boy, can’t you answer a simple question with a plain affirmative? What do you mean–quite? If somebody came to me and pointed you out and said, ‘Is that your son?’ do you suppose I should say ‘Quite?’ I wish the devil you didn’t collect prayer rugs. It’s sapped your brain.”
“They say prison life often weakens the intellect, father,” said Maud. She moved towards the door and turned the handle. Albert, the page boy, who had been courting earache by listening at the keyhole, straightened his small body and scuttled away. “Well, is that all, Aunt Caroline? May I go now?”
“Certainly. I have said all I wished to say.”
“Very well. I’m sorry to disobey you, but I can’t help it.”
“You’ll find you can help it after you’ve been cooped up here for a few more months,” said Percy.
A gentle smile played over Maud’s face.
“Love laughs at locksmiths,” she murmured softly, and passed from the room.
“What did she say?” asked Lord Marshmoreton, interested. “Something about somebody laughing at a locksmith? I don’t understand. Why should anyone laugh at locksmiths? Most respectable men. Had one up here only the day before yesterday, forcing open the drawer of my desk. Watched him do it. Most interesting. He smelt rather strongly of a damned bad brand of tobacco. Fellow must have a throat of leather to be able to smoke the stuff. But he didn’t strike me as an object of derision. From first to last, I was never tempted to laugh once.”
Lord Belpher wandered moodily to the window and looked out into the gathering darkness.
“And this has to happen,” he said bitterly, “on the eve of my twenty-first birthday.”
CHAPTER 7.
The first requisite of an invading army is a base. George, having entered Belpher village and thus accomplished the first stage in his foreward movement on the castle, selected as his base the Marshmoreton Arms. Selected is perhaps hardly the right word, as it implies choice, and in George’s case there was no choice. There are two inns at Belpher, but the Marshmoreton Arms is the only one that offers accommodation for man and beast, assuming–that is to say–that the man and beast desire to spend the night. The other house, the Blue Boar, is a mere beerhouse, where the lower strata of Belpher society gather of a night to quench their thirst and to tell one another interminable stories without any point whatsoever. But the Marshmoreton Arms is a comfortable, respectable hostelry, catering for the village plutocrats. There of an evening you will find the local veterinary surgeon smoking a pipe with the grocer, the baker, and the butcher, with perhaps a sprinkling of neighbouring farmers to help the conversation along. There is a “shilling ordinary”–which is rural English for a cut off the joint and a boiled potato, followed by hunks of the sort of cheese which believes that it pays to advertise, and this is usually well attended. On the other days of the week, until late in the evening, however, the visitor to the Marshmoreton Arms has the place almost entirely to himself.