"You are extraordinarily slow. Of course the person who is most likely to touch her personally is you."
"I've got to mind my p's and q's, in fact. That's not the way to manage her."
Mrs. Brereton's face clouded a little as she walked across the hall to the door which was being held open for her.
"Well, au revoir," she said. "I shall have more to say to you to-night. You dine with us, you know."
Jack Alston did not appear to be in any particular hurry to go upstairs again after Mrs. Brereton had gone. He waited on the door-step to see her get in, a groom who barely reached up to the horses' heads holding them while she took up the reins, then running stiffly to scramble in behind, as she went off down Park Lane in the most approved fashion, elbows square, a whip nearly perpendicular, and her horses stepping as if there were a succession of hurdles to negotiate, each to be taken in the stride. Her remarks about the importance of taking care had annoyed Jack a little, and still more his own annoyance at being annoyed. He had his own ideas about the management of his affairs, among which, about halfway down, came his wife, and the hint that she might, even conceivably, make matters unpleasant for him was the same sort of indignity as a suggestion that he could not quite manage his own dogs or horses. But after a minute he turned.
"For what time is her ladyship's carriage ordered?" he asked of the footman.
"Half-past three, my lord."
"Tell them to come round at a quarter to four instead," he said, and went slowly upstairs again.
He found his wife on the balcony where he had left her, with her maid beside her with two hats in her hand.