"Lorton, Lorton," corrected Lady Wolfer. "And it is a rude question, to which you won't get an answer. Go downstairs and smoke a cigarette. I'll be ready presently."
"All right—delighted; but time's up, you know," he said; and, with a bow to Nell, sauntered out.
Lady Wolfer sat down at the desk, and wrote rapidly for a moment; then she said casually—a little too casually, it would have struck a woman of the world:
"That is a great friend of mine—and Lord Wolfer's," she added quickly. "He is an awfully nice man, and—and very useful. He is a kind of tame cat here, runs in and out as he likes, and plays escort when I'm slumming or attending meetings. I hope you'll like him. He's not such a fool as he looks, and though he does clip his 'Gees'—sounds like a pun, doesn't it?—and cuts his sentences short, he—he is very good-natured and obliging."
"He seems so," said Nell, a little puzzled to understand why Lady Wolfer did not take her maid or one of her lady friends to her meetings, instead of being taken by Sir Archie Walbrooke.
Burden knocked at the door at this moment, and announced that Miss Lorton's room was ready.
"Very well," said Lady Wolfer, as if relieved. "Be sure that Miss Lorton has everything she wants. And, oh, Burden, please understand that all Miss Lorton's orders are to be obeyed—I mean, obeyed without hesitation or question. She is absolutely in command here."
"Yes, my lady," responded Burden respectfully.
Nell followed her to a corridor on the next floor, and into a large and handsomely furnished room with which the bedchamber communicated. Her box had been unpacked, and its modest contents arranged in a wardrobe and drawers. The rooms looked as if they had been got ready hurriedly, but they were handsome and richly furnished, and Burden apologized for their lack of homeliness.
"I'll get some flowers, miss," she said. "There's a big box of them comes up from the country place every morning. And if you think it's cold, I'll light a fire——"