Under the circumstances I need not have minded. But one is not consistent. I minded horribly the idea of what they might be thinking about me—that I had become horrid, forward, fast.
Something that seemed as hard and hot as a baked paving-stone seemed to settle between my chest and my throat as I fumbled at the last button of my long white gloves, and, in answer to Mr. Waters’ business-like “Ready, Miss Trant?” I rose to follow him out.
Lady Vandeleur’s tortoiseshell-handled lorgnette rose also. I saw her turn a searching scrutiny upon my blond, glossily-groomed, well-to-do looking escort.
Again a horrible hint of what she might be thinking of me passed through my mind. She knew I worked now in the City; she would think—Sydney would think—I had made it an excuse for “picking up” the attentions of a wealthy business-man, perhaps my employer. From every point of view it is considered “bad form” for the head of a firm to have anything to say to his typist out of business-hours.
All this she would say to Sydney, and to that girl. No, I couldn’t stand that! There seemed only one thing in the world for me to do. “I’m forced into it,” I thought rapidly, “so here goes.”
I touched Mr. Waters’s sleeve, murmuring:
“Please wait a moment.”
He stopped, looking down at me inquiringly. I turned, smiling, to that slim, expensively-gowned figure of outraged propriety at the other table. I accosted her as if I thought she had not seen me.
“Lady Vandeleur, don’t you know me?”
My own voice sounded strangely artificial in my ears, but, thank goodness, it was steady enough, with every syllable distinct.