Hillyard did not pursue the argument.
"I knew that I had seen you before. I remember where now. You were with Sir Chichester at the first performance of 'The Dark Tower.' I peeped out behind the curtain of my box and saw you."
Joan's face relaxed.
"Oh, yes, I was there."
"But——" Hillyard began, and caught himself up. He had been on the point of saying that she had a very different aspect in the stalls of the Rubicon Theatre. But he looked her up and down and held his peace. Yet what he did substitute left him in no better case.
"So you have not gone to the races," he said, and once more her lip curled in disdain. She drew herself up to her full height—she was not naturally small, but a good honest piece of English maidenhood.
"Do I look as if I were likely to go to the races?" she asked superbly.
She was dressed in a sort of shapeless flowing gown, saffron in colour, and of a material which, to Hillyard's inexperienced eye, seemed canvas. It spread about her on the ground, and it was high at the throat. A broad starched white collar, like an Eton boy's, surmounted it, and a little black tie was fastened in a bow, and scarves floated untidily around her.
"No, upon my word you do not," cried Hillyard, nettled at last by her haughtiness, and with such a fervour of agreement, that suddenly all her youth rose into Joan Whitworth's face and got the better of her pose. She laughed aloud, frankly, deliciously. And her laugh was still rippling about the room when motor-horns hooted upon the drive.
At once the laughter vanished.