“Thanks very much—I don’t think I can——” She hesitated, praying for escape, and Savaury snorted and waved his glove again.
“Oh, of course you can come! I insist. You can tell me about the new stop on the organ. I can’t manage it—so tiresome! And Petronilla thinks she’s got mumps or appendicitis or something. It will do her good to have a dinner-party. When? Oh, let me see! Hardly to-morrow, of course—no! Shall we say Wednesday?—yes! Now don’t be tiresome and send us back word. May I walk with you as far as the park? Oh, you’re not going that way? I’m sorry.” The Honourable was about to descend personally upon the shop, and he raised his voice as Deb fled. “Petronilla sent you a message, by the way. Wants you to go with her to the Cantacute concert—Verity’s performance, you know. And don’t forget about Wednesday!”
A second chuckle came from the victoria, and he looked round quickly. Slinker’s wife, glowing like a rose in her dark furs, leaned towards him.
“Won’t you ask me, too?” she begged prettily. “Don’t pretend you don’t know me just because we haven’t been introduced. My grandfather was your grandfather’s stable-boy at Tasser, so that’s quite a bond, isn’t it, and ought to make us friends on the spot! Do ask me to dinner, there’s a dear thing. I want to meet that nice girl ever so badly.”
“But—but—my dear lady——!” Savaury stammered helplessly, clutching at his hat, and dropping the lavender glove to a slushy bed.
“I’m not a lady. I’m old Steenie Stone’s daughter. But I’m an imitation Lyndesay, nowadays, for my sins, so you can ask me to dinner quite comfortably, without upsetting your ancestors.”
“Of course—of course!” Savaury managed a gallant smile. “But I was not aware that you were—going out—and—there’s Miss Lyndesay!” he bungled desperately, hoping fervently that the men-servants were not listening.
“Oh—etiquette!” Slinker’s wife flapped her big muff contemptuously. “It’s a bit late to start being conventional about this affair, isn’t it—Stanley’s general behaviour, I mean, and mine?” He cocked a nervous ear, and she shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, it’s all right! They know a good deal more about it than you do. I belong to them, you see, so I don’t value their opinion like you aristocrats!”
She smiled at him enchantingly, and he responded involuntarily, though inwardly sadly pained.
“As for Miss Lyndesay, she’ll get used to me. People do, you know. Mrs. Stalker’s taking me back with her to tea, so I am going out, you see. And I’m just dying to know that girl, so you’ll ask me, won’t you?”