She liked
Dudley Pickering and she was devoted to Claire. It made her happy
to think that it was she who had brought them together.
But of the other members of the party, Dudley Pickering was
unhappy because he feared that burglars were about to raid the
house; Roscoe Sherriff because he feared they were not; Claire
because, now that the news of the engagement was out, it seemed to
be everybody's aim to leave her alone with Mr Pickering, whose
undiluted society tended to pall. And Lord Wetherby was unhappy
because he found Eustace, the monkey, a perpetual strain upon his
artistic nerves. It was Eustace who had driven him to his shack in
the woods. He could have painted far more comfortably in the
house, but Eustace had developed a habit of stealing up to him and
plucking the leg of his trousers; and an artist simply cannot give
of his best with that sort of thing going on.
Lady Wetherby wrote on. She was not fond of letter-writing and she
had allowed her correspondence to accumulate; but she was
disposing of it in an energetic and conscientious way, when the
entrance of Wrench, the butler, interrupted her.
Wrench had been imported from England at the request of Lord
Wetherby, who had said that it soothed him and kept him from
feeling home-sick to see a butler about the place.
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