I sought out Nina before lunch in her boudoir, a charming little room opening on the garden, with Louis Quinze furniture on the floor and old French Masters on the walls; really extremely elegant.
Her ladyship sat at her writing table (a “museum piece,” no doubt), sorting her letters. She was not looking her most amiable, I regretted to observe, but, as soon as I came in, she spoke to me.
“Isn’t this too bad? Godfrey’s had to go over to the works. Some trouble’s arisen; he doesn’t even tell me what! He went off at ten o’clock, before I was downstairs, merely leaving a note to say he’d gone, and might not be back for two or three days. He took his man and a portmanteau with him in the car, Emile tells me. And to-morrow is Eunice’s birthday, and he’d delighted the child by promising to take us for a long drive and give us lunch somewhere. It’s so seldom that he puts himself out to give her pleasure, that I was—that it seems a shame.”
“A disappointment, certainly, Nina.”
“It knocks the whole thing on the head. The day would be too long for Waldo, and what would she care about going with you and me? Oh, I beg your pardon, but——”
“Of course! Two’s company; four can move in companies; but three’s hopeless!”
“I’m really vexed.” She looked it. “I wonder if he’s really gone on business!”
“You could telephone the works and find out if he’s there,” I suggested rather maliciously. To tell the truth, I did not think that he would be—not much there, at all events.
“My dear Julius, I’m not quite an idiot in dealing with young men whom I want to—whose friendship I like and value. Do you suppose he’d like me telephoning after him as if I was his anxious mother?”
A wise woman! But just at the moment she was irritated, so that she had nearly put the relations which she wished to maintain between herself and Godfrey too bluntly. However, her amendment was excellent.