"'Three hours! Oh the Princess will get up!' said Lady Augusta.
"'I thought she was Mr. Paraday's greatest admirer.'
"'I dare say she is--she's so awfully clever. But what's the use
of being a Princess--'
"'If you can't dissemble your love?' I asked as Lady Augusta was
vague. She said at any rate she'd question her maid; and I'm
hoping that when I go down to dinner I shall find the manuscript
has been recovered."
CHAPTER X.
"It has NOT been recovered," I wrote early the next day, "and I'm
moreover much troubled about our friend. He came back from Bigwood
with a chill and, being allowed to have a fire in his room, lay
down a while before dinner. I tried to send him to bed and indeed
thought I had put him in the way of it; but after I had gone to
dress Mrs. Wimbush came up to see him, with the inevitable result
that when I returned I found him under arms and flushed and
feverish, though decorated with the rare flower she had brought him
for his button-hole. He came down to dinner, but Lady Augusta
Minch was very shy of him. To-day he's in great pain, and the
advent of ces dames--I mean of Guy Walsingham and Dora Forbes--
doesn't at all console me.
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