"Why, is it you, then, who is my partner?" says Tita, quickly looking at Tom. "Maurice wants me to dance this with him. I told him I should be delighted to, but——"
"Did you tell me that?" interrupts Sir Maurice, always smiling.
"Well, if I didn't say it, I meant it," with a shrug. "But, you see, I had lost my card, so I wasn't sure whether I was engaged to somebody else or not."
"Why——" begins Hescott.
He stops dead short. Suddenly it occurs to him that perhaps she doesn't wish her husband to know! He curses himself for this thought afterwards. She—she to descend to duplicity of any sort!
"It is you who have my card!" cries Tita suddenly, as if just remembering, and with a merry laugh. "Of course! How could I have forgotten!"
"How, indeed!" says her husband pleasantly; his mouth is looking a little hard, however.
"Give it to me," says Tita.
Hescott gives her the car in silence. If she is ignorant, he, at all events, is quite aware that there is thunder in the atmosphere.
Tita runs her eye down the card.