Lady Bellingdown took it, and there wasn't a sound. The entire group was enveloped in the silence of anticipation.
"It's from Nina," announced the recipient. "She isn't coming, after all. 'Agnes seriously ill,' she says. 'Can't bring her, and won't come without her.'"
"Didn't I tell you?" asked Lord Waltheof. "She's a slave to the kiddy."
"I like that in Nina," praised the duke. "She's a fine woman—a devilishly fine woman! But Nibbetts was a martyr, just the same."
The next week the duke went up to town by himself and called at the flat in Mayfair.
"I came to see how the kiddy was," he announced, though he hardly needed to have asked a question, for Nina, he saw at a glance, was in high spirits.
"She's better, the dear," she said; "ever so much better. The doctor feared pneumonia, but it was only a bad cold. It's sweet of you to come"—at this point she kissed him—"and I'm going to let you see her as a reward."
The child was sitting up in a bed literally covered with dolls. On the head-rail was perched a pygmy parrot, which greeted the duke with: "Bon jour! Bon jour! m'sieu'!" provoking his grace to inordinate laughter, in which Miss Agnes heartily joined.
"Coco's very polite," she said. "I teach him to be polite. Papa always said that good manners were half the battle."
The duke looked at Nina. "Papa?" he questioned.