"I was just going to order the carriage to take me to the workhouse," she said, "but I can still afford to breakfast without the assistance of the poor laws. Must you go, Mr. Alington? Half-past two; is it really? I had no idea. Good-night. I hope Jack is behaving himself on your board. Mind you keep him in order; it is more than I can do."
She looked Mr. Alington full in the face as she spoke, trying, but failing, to detect the least shadow of a change in his impassive and middle-class features. But when he looked benevolently at her through his spectacles and bowed with his accustomed awkwardness, she felt a sudden lightness of heart at the thought that he had not seen. She did not examine too closely into what this lightness of heart exactly implied.
The others soon followed Mr. Alington's example, and took themselves off. Jack had walked to the front-door with Lady Haslemere, and Kit waited a moment in the drawing-room, after sending Lord Comber, who lingered, away, for him to come up again. Whether she intended to tell him what had happened she scarcely knew; that must depend. But he did not return, and before long servants entered to put out the lights. They would have withdrawn when they saw her, but she got up.
"Yes, put the lights out," she said. "Has his lordship gone out?"
"No, my lady; his lordship went upstairs to his room ten minutes ago."
Kit abandoned the idea of telling him that night. If she went to his room, it would imply that she had something to say, and she did not wish to commit herself yet. So she went to her own room, and rang for her maid.
The hair and unlacing processes seemed interminable this evening, and were intolerable even to the accompaniment of an excellent Russian cigarette. She had been given on her birthday, only a few weeks before, by Lord Comber, a wonderful silver-framed antique mirror, with the old Venetian motto on it, "Sono felice, te videndo," and it had made dressing and undressing a positive pleasure. Jack also had made himself amusing about it; he had come into her room the day after it arrived, and, seeing the motto on it, said, laughing:
"God has given you a good conceit of yourself, Kit. Where did you buy it?"
"I didn't buy it," she replied, never having intended to make a mystery about it. "Ted gave it me."
"Ted Comber? What damned impertinence!"