“You couldn’t perhaps take me to Mrs. Shuttleworth’s for tea?” he asked.
“No, I’m afraid I could hardly do that,” said Georgie. “Good-bye. I hope we shall meet again.”
Nemesis meantime had been dogging Lucia’s footsteps, with more success than Lucia was having in dogging Olga’s. She had arrived, as Georgie had seen, at the Museum, and again paid a shilling to enter that despised exhibition. It was rather full, for visitors who had lunched at the Ambermere Arms had come in, and there was quite a crowd round Queen Charlotte’s mittens, among whom was Lady Ambermere herself who had driven over from the Hall with two depressed guests whom she had forced to come with her. She put up her glasses and stared at Lucia.
“Ah, Mrs. Lucas!” she said with the singular directness for which she was famous. “For the moment I did not recognize you with your hair like that. It is a fashion that does not commend itself to me. You have come in, of course, to look at Her late Majesty’s mittens, for really there is very little else to see.”
As a rule, Lucia shamelessly truckled to Lady Ambermere, and schemed to get her to lunch or dinner. But to-day she didn’t care two straws about her, and while these rather severe remarks were being addressed to her, her eyes darted eagerly round the room in search of those for whom she would have dropped Lady Ambermere without the smallest hesitation.
“Yes, dear Lady Ambermere,” she said. “So interesting to think that Queen Charlotte wore them. Most good of you to have presented them to our little Museum.”
“Lent,” said Lady Ambermere. “They are heirlooms in my family. But I am glad to let others enjoy the sight of them. And by a remarkable coincidence I have just had the priviledge of showing them to a relative of their late owner. Princess Isabel. I offered to have the case opened for her, and let her try them on. She said, most graciously, that it was not necessary.”
“Yes, dear Princess Isabel,” said Lucia, “I heard she had come down. Is she here still?”
“No. She and Mrs. Shuttleworth have just gone. A motor drive, I understand, before tea. I suggested, of course, a visit to the Hall, where I would have been delighted to entertain them. Where did they lunch?”
“At Georgie Pillson’s,” said Lucia bitterly.