“And now that we’ve led up to it in this way, I see no point in waiting. So next week, Miss Trant, the ‘engagement’ had better be announced.”
“Certainly,” I agreed, again picturing to myself the stupefaction of everybody at the Near Oriental, from Mr. Dundonald (a pity the shock can’t incapacitate him for life!) down to Harold.
At home there’d be Cicely. I’m fond of her, but I dread this. She takes such an exasperating interest in anything that can be called a love-affair. I myself can’t see what there is so thrilling about “Who is going to marry whom, and why?”
But Cicely positively “collects,” just as some people collect book-plates, all she can find out on this hackneyed subject. I know she’ll insist on treating this arrangement between my employer and myself as a real, romantic “affaire de cœur.” Well, I suppose I shall have to keep from slapping her!
Then there’ll be Mr. Waters’ friends, whoever they are, to whom I shall have to be introduced as the girl he’s going to marry. (Oh, lor’! as Mrs. Skinner puts it.)
“After which,” pursued the Governor, “I think I shall have to ask you to——What is it, Miss Trant? Just seen somebody you know?”
“Yes,” I managed to murmur; “I know the lady who has just come in—at the next table.”
For at the table which had been reserved for three, two of the party had just turned up.
One was a fair-haired young girl, expensively frocked in blue velvet, but still looking like school-room tea. The other—how well I knew the slim, well-preserved silhouette of her figure, the carefully-graded bloom of her face!
It was Lady Vandeleur, whom I’d imagined to be in Japan!