"I shall not require you at all to-day, Parker. I brought you only because the General would never have allowed me to come alone; but I dislike being attended by any one when I go to the dentist's or to the doctor's. You may wait at the railway-station until I come back. I may be only an hour, or I may be gone all day."
"The General's orders, ma'am," began Parker, with a gasp; but her mistress cut the sentence short at once.
"I suppose you understand that you are my servant and not the General's?" she said. "You will obey my orders, if you please."
She gave the maid some money, and instructions to spend as much as she pleased at buffet and book-stalls until her return.
"Enjoy yourself as much as you like and as much as you can," said Mrs. Vane carelessly—"only don't stir from the station, for when I come back I shall want you at once."
She installed the faithful Parker safely in the waiting-room, and then went out and got into a cab—not a hansom cab; Mrs. Vane did not wish to be seen in her drive through the London streets. The address which she gave to the cabman was not that of her dentist, but of the lodgings at present tenanted by her brother.
Parker remained at the station in a state of tearful collapse. She was terribly afraid of being questioned and stormed at by the General when she got back for neglect of her trust. She was certainly what Flossy had called her—"a faithful fool." She wanted to do all that her mistress required; but it had not as yet even occurred to her that Mrs. Vane was quite certain to require utter silence, towards the General and everybody else, on the question of her disposition of the day. And, if silence was impossible, a good bold lie would do as well. Parker had not yet grasped the full amount of devotion that was expected of her.
Hubert had seldom been more surprised in his life than when the elegantly-dressed lady who was ushered into his sitting-room proved to be his sister Florence. She had never visited him before. He sprang up from his writing-table, which was piled high with books and manuscripts, flung a half-smoked cigar into the grate, and greeted her with a mixture of doubt and astonishment, which amused if it did not flatter the astute Mrs. Vane.
"This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! I hope you are not the bearer of ill news, Flossy! Is anything wrong at Beechfield?"
"Oh, dear, no! I came up to see my dentist," said Flossy carelessly, "and I thought that I would give you a call en passant. So these are your rooms? Not at all bad for a bachelor!"