“Isn’t it a pity to warn me?” inquired Lady Gwendolyn, with quiet scorn. “By the time you have collected your evidence I may have made my escape, you know, since ‘forewarned is forearmed.’”
Mrs. O’Hara looked startled. She had never thought of that. Lady Gwendolyn smiled to herself as she walked up to the mantelpiece and rang the bell.
The waiter came hurrying back, and began, directly he entered the room:
“There are two Mrs. O’Hara’s, ma’am. I thought there must be. The other lady’s rooms are twenty-seven and twenty-eight.”
“Then pray show her there,” interrupted Lady Gwendolyn, turning her back coolly upon the above-mentioned lady.
As to Colonel Dacre, she had never once vouchsafed him so much as a glance. It was sufficient for her that he had come to the “Langham” to meet Mrs. O’Hara, and sanctioned the other’s accusations by his silence. When the room was, as she believed, clear, she flung herself into the nearest chair, with the passionate, indignant air of a woman who feels that she has been insulted as well as injured.
She had no idea Colonel Dacre had remained in the room until he touched her arm, half-deprecatingly, and said:
“Gwendolyn, I want to speak to you.”
She turned upon him almost fiercely then.
“You can have nothing to say that I should care to listen to, Colonel Dacre. You came here to meet Mrs. O’Hara, and therefore I should be extremely sorry to keep you from her.”