"Pearl," replied Mrs. Rawlinson gravely, as she rose and began fastening her cloak. "I don't understand you in this flippant mood. I have never known you to joke about sacred subjects before, and I can't imagine what possesses you now. Your looks, too, have changed. You seem to have grown quite thin in a week. Your eyes are shining, and your cheeks have two red spots on them. What is the meaning of all this?"
Pearl looked impatiently at the clock, an action which as she intended, was not lost on her cousin.
"You are going out?" she said; "well, good-bye. We shall meet at the Prime Minister's ball to-night, I suppose, and then dearest, you will have plenty of time as you do not dance, to tell me what is troubling you."
Pearl gave a sigh of relief as the door closed behind Mrs. Rawlinson.
"Oh, these relations!" she ejaculated. "Much as we may love and appreciate them on ordinary occasions, how utterly wearisome and de trop they prove themselves at certain moments of one's existence."
Once more she glanced at the clock, noticing that the hands pointed to half-past five.
"Three hours and a half more," she sighed, as, for the twentieth time that day, she drew from her pocket Martinworth's passionate reply to her summons. "How shall I ever get through them?"
At a quarter to nine that evening, just as Amy Mendovy was rising from the table, with the intention of dressing for one of the events of the spring--the Prime Minister's ball--a note from Mrs. Nugent was put into her hands.
"Dearest Amy," it ran, "As you love me come to me immediately on receipt of this line. I am in great trouble, and in dire need of you. Give up the ball for my sake, and come to me, I implore you. Yours,
Pearl."
"P.S.--I am not ill."