"I'll take you to have some tea. Won't that do as well?" and they moved away.
Ten minutes later the Secretary met the Dowager Marchioness of Port Arthur, who bore down on him at once.
"Mr. Stanley, have you seen my daughter?" she demanded. "I'm waiting to go home, and I can't find her anywhere."
"The last I saw of her she was with Lieutenant Kingsland."
"Oh, you have seen her this afternoon, then."
This last remark seemed tempered with a little disapproval.
"I had the pleasure of fifteen minutes' chat with her," continued the Secretary imperturbably. The Marchioness raised her eyebrows.
"At least she said it was fifteen minutes"—he hastened to explain—"it didn't seem as long to me; then Lieutenant Kingsland arrived."
"I knew his mother," she said, "he comes of one of the best families in the land."
Most young men would have been crushed by the evident implication, but Stanley rose buoyantly to the occasion.