“But there isn’t enough, though one has it all!” said Lady Hampshire. “To-day, for instance, would have to be doubled, as one doubles at bridge, if I was to do all I have promised to.”
“But you won’t, dear, so it doesn’t matter,” said the Duchess. “In any case, there is always time for what one wants to do, and one can omit the rest. I always thought my time was completely taken up, but I find I can do my own shopping at Mason’s as well. I buy soap and candles and sealing-wax, and take them home in the motor.”
“But not every morning?” asked Lady Hampshire, beginning to attend violently.
“Practically every afternoon. I always find I have forgotten something I meant to buy the day before. Also, it is a sort of retreat. One never meets there anybody one knows, which is such a rest. I don’t have to grin and talk.”
Lunch was soon over, and instead of having coffee and cigarettes served at the table, Colonel Ascot got up.
“I do hope, Lady Hampshire,” he said, “that you and the others will not hurry away, and that you will excuse me, as I have a most important engagement at a quarter-past three, which I cannot miss. It is very annoying, and the worst of it is that I made the appointment myself, quite forgetting that I was to have the pleasure of seeing you at lunch.”
“Am I to take your place as hostess?” she asked, as she sat down with him for a moment in a corner of the drawing-room.
“If you will, both now and always,” said he.
She laughed; he had proposed to her so often that a repetition was not in the least embarrassing. But somehow, to-day, he looked unusually attractive and handsome, and she was more serious with him than was her wont. Also the thought of doing business for Agatha was in her mind.
“Ah, my dear friend,” she said, “I should have to know so much more about you first. For instance, that appointment of your own making seems to me to need inquiry. Now be truthful, Colonel Ascot, and tell me if it is not a woman you are going to see?”