Or if she won't--Lord Dunstable will." Meadows came nearer--bent down to study her tired face.
"There's some mystery, of course, Doris, in all this! Aren't you going to tell me what it means ?" His wife's pale cheeks flushed.
"I would have told you--if you'd been the least bit glad to see me! But--if you don't pay the taxi, Arthur, it will run up like anything!" She pointed peremptorily to the ticking vehicle and the impatient driver.

Meadows went mechanically, paid the driver, shouldered the bag, and carried it into the hall of the Lodge.

He then perceived that two grinning and evidently inquisitive footmen, waiting in the hall for anything that might turn up for them to do, had been watching the whole scene--the arrival of the taxi, and the meeting between the unknown lady and himself, through a side window.
Burning to box someone's ears, Meadows loftily gave the bag to one of them with instructions that it should be taken to his room, and then turned to rejoin his wife.
As he crossed the gravel in front of the house, his mind ran through all possible hypotheses.

But he was entirely without a clue--except the clue of jealousy.

He could not hide from himself that Doris had been jealous of Lady Dunstable, and had perhaps been hurt by his rather too numerous incursions into the great world without her, his apparent readiness to desert her for cleverer women.