“Bless them, let them come,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and the longer they stop the better I shall be pleased. Dora will be a help too: she will help me with the dinners and what not.”
The two were alone on this their last day at Grote, but all six wasp-coloured footmen marshalled by Thoresby formed a sort of frieze round the table, occasionally changing a plate or handling a dish. Generous though he was with money, Mr. Osborne had very distinct notions about getting his money’s worth when he had paid it, and since the house required six footmen he saw no reason why they should not all wait at table, even when only he and Mrs. O. were having their lunch. Nor was the number of dishes curtailed because they were alone; Mr. Osborne always ate of them all, and because there was “no company” that was no reason why he should go starved. It was not, therefore, for nearly an hour after the time they sat down that he went to the telephone—so accurately depicted by Sabincourt—and rang up Claude.
He joined Mrs. Osborne on the terrace a minute or two afterwards.
“Claude’s willing enough, and thank you,” he said, “but he says he must speak to Dora first. So you’d better telephone to 92, my lady, and tell them to make ready whatever rooms you think right. Give them a nice sitting-room, my dear, so that they can feel independent.”
“Better hear from Dora first,” said Mrs. Osborne.
“Just as you please; but when the girl says as the flat in Mount Street is hot and stuffy, and there’s the coolest house in London waiting for her just round the corner, I don’t see there’s much call to wait. Well, my lady, I must be off. There’s a committee been sitting in the Lords on the Bill about the Employers’ Liability Act, and I must get all they’ve talked about at my fingers’ ends. Who knows, but Mrs. O., but that I’ll be able to tell them a thing or two in that chamber before the summer’s out? It’s a strange thing to me how clever men, such as have taken degrees and fellowships at Oxford, should have so little common sense on other matters. As if there wasn’t a difference between one sort of risk and another, and they want to lump them all on to the employer. I doubt most of them Liberals are either Socialists or afraid of the Socialists. But there! the noble lords have had a committee and I must see what’s been said and done.”
“Just to think of it! And have you got any idea about your new name yet?”
“No, I daresay something will suggest itself. After all, I shall smell as sweet by any other name, hey?”
“Lor’, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne with a slight accent of reproof; for Thoresby had come to see if there were any orders, and must have heard.
The question, however, about this move of Dora and Claude to Park Lane was not so foregone a conclusion as Mr. Osborne had anticipated. Claude had gone to the telephone when he was rung up, and came back beaming to tell Dora of this delightful offer.