But she obediently followed her hostess, and Miss Sandiloe, giggling slightly, tripped behind her with Cooper in tow.
From sheer curiosity, Julian went into the morning-room twenty minutes later.
His wife, looking unusually harassed, was seated near the window, Miss Farmer, Miss Sandiloe and Mr. Cooper having unconsciously placed themselves in a semi-circle in front of her, each seated upon the edge of an upright chair.
"Why," Lady Rossiter was exclaiming in her brightest voice, "one of my greatest friends is a dear little dressmaker who lives in Culmouth, and another is the quaint old man who looks after the lifeboat-house down in our Duckpool Cove."
Edna must be hard put to it, Julian reflected, to have made use of both her dear little dressmaker and her quaint old man within one sentence. Both, he knew, were frequently in requisition for the dissipation of any sense of awkwardness which she suspected might be assailing her visitors, but one was generally held in reserve to supplement the effect of the other if necessary.
"Here you are!" Edna exclaimed, almost with relief in her voice, as he entered, thereby, Julian told himself, depriving young Cooper of a remark which he would certainly have made his own.
Young Cooper, however, was not to be defeated.
"We've accepted Lady Rossiter's kind invitation, you see, Sir Julian," he observed.
"How are you, Cooper? How d'y'e do?" He shook hands with the shorthand teachers. "Were you the only people energetic enough to walk over in this heat?"
"Why, yes. The new Lady Superintendent spoke of coming since Lady Rossiter was so kind, but she didn't turn up, so we've come without her."