“Am I to be confronted with one favour or two?” the Marquis asked with a slight edge to his voice.
“Actually one,” Lord Rosebery replied.
“I am listening.”
“The Prime Minister has a relative who is going to India and he would be very grateful if you would be kind enough to convey her there in comfort. “
The Marquis’s lips tightened.
He had already chosen his party with great care and he had no wish to have somebody who might not fit in foisted on him at the last moment.
It flashed through his mind that he could say every cabin was full and to squeeze somebody else in would be impossible, but the twinkle he saw in Lord Rosebery’s eye made him ask,
“Who is this importunate traveller?”
There was no mistaking the somewhat knowing smile on the Foreign Secretary’s lips as he replied,
“S
