Grace looked up penitently.
"I know there isn't. I don't know why I sounded so cross. I think perhaps I'm a little tired of the sound of Miss Vivian's name, that's all."
"Well! Of all the peculiar things to say! Upon my word, dear," said Miss Delmege scathingly, "if I didn't know you so intimately, I should sometimes consider your manner downright strange!"
This conviction remained with Miss Delmege. She went into the sitting-room to await the supper-bell, which Mrs. Bullivant generally rang some quarter of an hour after the appointed time, and remarked in a detached voice: "Poor Grace Jones seems rather upset tonight. What I should almost call sort of on edge. I suppose she doesn't like the idea of having to go back to the ordinary office routine tomorrow, after going in and out from Plessing in the way she has done."
"I didn't notice anything wrong with her, I must say!" exclaimed Miss Marsh, who was both fond of Grace and anxious to miss no opportunity for contradicting Miss Delmege.
"No, dear? Well, perhaps you wouldn't. There's none so blind as those that won't see, and we all know that love is blind," was the gentle response of Miss Delmege, as she sank into the chair nearest the fire.
Miss Marsh could think of no better retort than "I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that, Delmege, and I shouldn't think you did yourself, either."
"There's the bell," said Tony.
They trooped down to the basement, and every one said how nice it was to see old Plumtree back in her place again, and Mrs. Bullivant triumphantly announced that there would be sausages, because Miss Plumtree liked them, to celebrate her return.
"Not two for me, really, please," Miss Delmege protested elegantly, and manipulated the extreme ends of her knife and fork with the merest tips of her exclusively curved fingers, as a protest against the great enthusiasm displayed by several of her neighbours.