Lady Thurso pressed her fingers against her eyelids for a moment.
“I can’t remember,” she said. “Go to my room quickly, and bring me a large blue engagement-book—the one with ‘Where am I?’ written on it. And bring me anything—cold mutton or bread and cheese.”
She turned to Ruby.
“And I am so hungry!” she cried. “And it is exceedingly likely I shall have to fly off without any lunch. Oh, if I were only unemployed for two hours, I should spend one in eating! Besides, I had no breakfast, and is one egg in aspic sufficient for an active female until tea-time?”
Ruby laughed.
“It wouldn’t be for this one,” she said. “But why no breakfast? Is that a new plan?”
“New? No; it’s as old as the hills, for that delightful old Professor, the one like a pink bear at the British Museum, told me the other day——”
“Is he a hydrangea, too?” asked Jim.
“Not at all. When one goes out to lunch, he is the one person in the room whom everybody knows. Don’t interrupt. He told me that the ancient Egyptians never had any breakfast, because the word for breakfast is the same as afternoon, or something of the sort—and think how marvellous they were! I’ve been an ancient Egyptian for nearly a fortnight.”
“But they never had motor-cars,” said Jim. “It may have been that.”