Mr. Merriall did not turn so quickly, but watched the three figures at Georgie’s door.
“Appearances are deceptive,” he said. “But isn’t that Olga Shuttleworth and Princess Isabel?”
“No! Where?” said Lucia looking in the opposite direction.
“Just gone into that house; Georgie Pillson’s, didn’t you say?”
“No, really?” said Lucia. “How stupid of me not to have seen them. Shall I pop in now? No, I think I will ring them up presently, unless we find that they have already rung me up.”
Lucia was putting a brave face on it, but she was far from easy. It looked like a plot: it did indeed, for Olga had never told her she was coming to Riseholme, and Georgie had never told her that Princess Isabel was the friend she was bringing with her. However, there was lunch-time in which to think over what was to be done. But though she talked incessantly and rather satirically about Riseholme, she said no more about the prima donna and the princess....
Lucia might have been gratified (or again she might not) if she had known how vivacious a subject of conversation she afforded at Georgie’s select little luncheon party. Princess Isabel (with her mouth now full of Mrs. Boucher’s tomatoes) had been subjected during this last week to an incessant bombardment from Lucia, and had heard on quite good authority that she alluded to her as “Isabel, dear Princess Isabel.”
“And I will not go to her house,” she said. “It is a free country, and I do not choose to go to her kind house. No doubt she is a very good woman. But I want to hear more of her, for she thrills me. So does your Riseholme. You were talking of the Museum.”
“Georgie, go on about the Museum,” said Olga.
“Well,” said Georgie, “there it was. They all went in, and then they all came out again, and one of them was reading my catalogue—I made it—aloud, and they all screamed with laughter.”