"What can it possibly mean? Why should Lord Vernon
wish to appear ill when he isn't?"
"I don't suppose he's doing it for fun," observed Susie, sagely.
"No, of course not," agreed Nell. "There isn't any fun in it that I can
see. But it seems a very remarkable course of action. Some great affair
of state must depend upon it," she added in a tone slightly awe-struck,
for her imagination was beginning to be affected. "He seems awfully
young to hold such an important place," she added.
"These English statesmen always look younger than they are," said Sue.
"From his pictures, I always imagined that Chamberlain was a
comparatively young man, and here I read somewhere the other day that
he's nearly seventy!"
"At any rate," concluded Nell, "since it was for our sake Lord Vernon
threw off the mask, so to speak, it is only fair, on our part, to keep
quiet about it. Why do you think he ran away so quickly? It was almost
rude."
"I thought it quite entirely rude," asserted Sue. "But maybe he saw
somebody coming whom he wished to avoid."
And then both gasped simultaneously:
"The owner of the dog!"
"Of course!"
"How dense we were!"
"But who is the owner of the dog? Not an Englishman!"
"No--a German, I should say."
"Yes--did you notice his accent? And then he is tall and blond.
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