CHAPTER 16
At the moment of Lord Marshmoreton's arrival, George was reading a letter from Billie Dore, which had come by that morning's post. It dealt mainly with the vicissitudes experienced by Miss Dore's friend, Miss Sinclair, in her relations with the man Spenser Gray. Spenser Gray, it seemed, had been behaving oddly. Ardent towards Miss Sinclair almost to an embarrassing point in the early stages of their acquaintance, he had suddenly cooled; at a recent lunch had behaved with a strange aloofness; and now, at this writing, had vanished altogether, leaving nothing behind him but an abrupt note to the effect that he had been compelled to go abroad and that, much as it was to be regretted, he and she would probably never meet again.
"And if," wrote Miss Dore, justifiably annoyed, "afte
