Mrs. Clinton sat down in an easy-chair before the fire and looked around her once, her gaze resting for a minute on the closed doors between the two rooms. She might have wished to see what sort of bedroom Dick occupied, but she did not do so. She sat still and waited for half an hour, and then Dick came in. She heard him humming an air as he ran upstairs, but when he entered the room and saw her, half risen from her chair to receive him, he stopped short in utter surprise. "Why, mother!" he exclaimed, and for a moment his face was not welcoming. Then he came forward and kissed her. "Whatever wind blows you here?" he asked lightly.
"I am staying with Eleanor Birkett," she said. "I have come up to engage a governess for the children."
"Time to break them in, eh?" he said. "How are the young rascals? Still raking in coins for their camera?"
She allowed herself a faint smile. "They are very well," she said.
"Well, shall we go and have a little dinner somewhere together, or are you dining in Queen's Gate?"
"I said I might not be back to dinner," she said. "I didn't know whether you would be engaged or not."
"No, I was going to dine at the club. That's capital. I'll just go and shift, if you don't mind waiting, and in the meantime you consider what Epicurean haunt you would like to go to." He went into his bedroom, giving her no time to say anything further if she had wished to, and left her to sit by the fire again and wait for him.
He came out again in a quarter of an hour, during which time she had heard splashings and movements, but no further humming of airs. "Verrey's, I think," he said. "You'll want to go somewhere quiet, eh?"
"Dick," she said, "I should like to have a little talk with you before we go out."
He was already putting on his scarf. "Let's dine first, mother," he said. "It's just upon eight, and I'm hungry. We can come back here afterwards, if you like."