“Monica——!”
I heard the quick, delighted, recognizing exclamation break from my old admirer’s lips. (I know he admires me, so why not say so?)
For the life of me, I couldn’t help raising my eyes and meeting his own fixed upon me.
He half rose. Then his glance fell upon my companion. Mr. Waters was then in the act of putting money down upon the little tray the waiter handed.
And then I saw the expression of eager delight on Sydney’s dark, rather dreamy-looking, face give place to a hurt surprise, as he sat back again in his chair.
At the same moment Lady Vandeleur turned quickly, fixing her own gaze upon our table.
Immediately the gaze became a blank stare, while her exquisitely-pencilled eyebrows rose almost to the edge of her costly “transformation.” She’d recognized me, of course. But stony displeasure and outraged convention gleamed in the eyes that she instantly averted.
You see, in her world a girl of my age is not supposed to lunch at the Carlton without a chaperon of some sort, and with an unspecified young man.
Up to this occasion I, Colonel Trant’s daughter, had been of that world, of those conventions. The Vandeleurs were evidently shocked at the lapse.
Dear old Sydney, old-fashionedly chivalrous towards women, was also old-fashionedly strict; and his mother—well! she was merely glad of the excuse to cut me.