Mrs. Willoughby opened her eyes to their widest extent, flung back her head, and exclaimed emphatically: "You will have no one in this world, Joanna, no one but yourself, to blame if the very worst happens. Mark my words, that uninteresting little creature, without a feature to bless herself with, is going to make poor guileless Johnnie ask her to marry him."
Joanna had some opinion of Mrs. Willoughby's shrewdness, if none of her discretion, and this prognostication gave her a sense of comfort which she had had no slightest expectation of deriving from the visit of condolence. It even enabled her to thank Lesbia with sufficient cordiality for coming, as she at last escorted her into the hall.
"When we shall meet again, dearest, I am utterly unable to declare," was a valediction which added considerably to her relief at parting. "My Lewis won't let me stay down here any longer, now that I'm fairly fit again. He's too sweet and self-sacrificing for words, poor lamb! 'Go back to London where there are a thousand jobs and undertakings crying out for you,' he says. I really can't bear to leave him, and the dear regiment, and my beloved Canteen, let alone you, whom I've always looked upon as the oldest, dearest of links with my girlhood. But, of course, my poor committees must be getting into the most ghastly muddles, and I know that all my officer protégés are in despair. They write me the most heartrending letters."
Lesbia shrouded herself in sables, wound a motor-veil round and round her head, and cast a piercing glance round the hall.
"What did I tell you, Joanna?"
"You told me that John was here with Miss Jones, but I don't see either of them. Is he going to drive you back?"
"So he pretended, my dear, but I can't answer for what she—"
Trevellyan came into the hall and greeted Lady Vivian.
"I've not kept you waiting, Mrs. Willoughby, I hope? I went to bring the car round."
"Where is Grace?" asked Lady Vivian, not without malice.