“Shall we have tea together here?”
“I don’t want any, I’m very comfortable now. You go and get yours.”
But Lilian sent for it, yet she could not persuade her mother to taste the toast or the bit of broiled steak. She was hungry.
Afterward she took up her book to study as she was not due down stairs. Then there was a tap at the door.
“Mrs. Barrington would like to see you in her room,” was the message.
She walked thither. Mrs. Dane sat there in her austerest fashion.
“Miss Boyd,” she said, “were you at your friend’s, Mrs. Trenham’s, this afternoon?”
Lilian flushed at the repeated question.
“I was not,” she said rather hesitatingly. “I meant to go, but”—then she paused. She must not say she met Edith.
Mrs. Barrington’s penetrating eyes were fixed on her face and brought a vivid color to it.