Then the flood tide of talk and laughter seemed to flow on over my head so fast that I literally could not make myself heard. I expostulated that I had already had lunch, and that I didn't want anything to drink, thanks, and that a gentleman was waiting outside on the step—but it passed unheeded until my hostess caught my eye.
"What's that, what's that?" ejaculated Miss Vi Vassity, preening her white-linen-bedecked bust across the table, as she saw me trying vainly to say something against the uproar. "What's all that disturbance in the dress circle, Bella?" The honey-blonde whom she called Bella turned to me and said: "Speak up, dear; no one can hear your lines!" Then she made a trumpet of her plump white hands and bellowed across to Miss Vi Vassity:
"Says she's got her best boy with her, and that he is having to wait outside on the steps!"
Here there was another general gale of laughter, in which my crimson-cheeked explanations were quite lost! In the middle of it all I saw the Honourable Jim rise from his seat, and stride into the hall and bring in Mr. Jessop. He appeared to be introducing him to London's Love. Miss Vi Vassity immediately made the new-comer sit down also, close to her at the top of the table.
I have said it was a rather strange lunch that we had had earlier in the morning at the little honeysuckle-covered inn, where we three had taken cider and bread and cheese together. But it was nothing to the extraordinary unexpectedness, yes, the weirdness in every way of this second lunch, at the long table lined with all those strange types.
Already, as I sat down, I had given up the idea that it was a female lunatic asylum and rest cure combined. But what was it, this "Refuge"?
I simply couldn't think! And I did not find out until quite a long time afterwards. After dinner was finished, when Million, I knew, was fuming for her boxes, she beckoned me to follow her away from the noisy crowd of girls, up the shallow, broad, old-fashioned staircase. There was one door on the landing which she tiptoed past, putting her finger on her lips.
More mystery!
I could hardly wait with my questions until the door was shut of the little, slanting-ceiling room with the snow-white, dimity-covered bed that represented Miss Million's new quarters.
There were straw mats on the bare boards. On the little chest of drawers there was a Jubilee mug full of the homeliest cottage flowers. This was a far cry from London and the Hotel Cecil!