“Rather sudden, wasn’t it?” queried Kate.
Lord Blair coughed. “Daniel is always very prompt to act, when action has to be taken,” he said.
“Didn’t he leave any note or message for Muriel?”
“No, none,” was the reply. “He went away in a great hurry. Am I to expect Muriel back to dinner?”
“With her eyes bunged up?” exclaimed Kate, impatiently. “Of course not. I’ll send her back to you in the morning. Hav’n’t you anything to say to comfort her?”
There was a pause. “Yes,” he replied at length, “tell her I’ve just seen Ada going upstairs with two bandboxes. She says they are new night-dresses from Maison Duprez.”
Kate uttered a contemptuous grunt. “That’s the last thing to tell her!” she exclaimed. “Good-night.”
She slammed down the receiver, and, going back to her bedroom, repeated to Muriel her father’s explanation of Daniel’s departure. This brought some comfort into the girl’s forlorn heart; and a second outburst of tears, which occurred an hour or so later, was due more to a kind of self-pity, perhaps, than to despair.
“It’s so unkind of him,” she cried, “to go off without even saying good-bye, or leaving a note.”
“But from what I gather,” Kate replied, “he doesn’t think you really care much about him.”