Ralph Duncombe spent a very bad half-hour on the Underground on his way back to the city; very bad!
Five minutes after the man of business had left Palace Gardens, Yorke, the man of pleasure, arrived there, and was welcomed as if he were the great Lama of Thibet.
"I haven't had time to change my habit, Yorke," said Lady Eleanor.
"You couldn't put on anything prettier," he said, with that fatal facility of his, and he looked at her admiringly.
Lady Eleanor never appeared to greater advantage than in the dark green habit, upon which Redfern had bestowed his most finished art.
"Come in to luncheon at once," she said; "it is the only way of stopping your compliments. Here is Aunt Denby in a complete quandary as to whether there is anything fit to eat. You know we women don't care what we get, but it is different with you men."
But the luncheon was perfect in its way. Clear soup, a fish pie, salmi of fowl, and—oh, wonderful cook! lobster cutlets; and the famous '73 claret.
Yorke did full justice to the good fare, and rattled away for the amusement of the two women. He talked of the opera, of the next meeting at Sandown, of anything and everything which would interest two women moving in the ultra-fashionable circles, and made himself so pleasant that Lady Denby—who always suspected, while she liked him—relaxed into a smile, and Lady Eleanor was beaming.
"Never get cutlets like these anywhere else," he said, helping himself to a second serve with a contented sigh.
"Not at Portmaris?" asked Lady Eleanor.