Chapter II
THE APARTMENT-HOUSE MYSTERY
1.
“This habit of becoming late for breakfast,” Lady Ashleigh remarked, as she set down the coffee-pot, “is growing upon your father.”
Ella glanced up from a pile of correspondence through which she had been looking a little negligently.
“When he comes,” she said, “I shall tell him what Clyde says in his new play—that unpunctuality for breakfast and overpunctuality for dinner are two of the signs of advancing age.”
“I shouldn’t,” her mother advised. “He hates anything that sounds like an epigram, and I noticed that he avoided any allusion to his birthday last month. Any news, dear?”
“None at all, mother. My correspondence is just the usual sort of rubbish—invitations and gossip. Such a lot of invitations, by-the-bye.”
“At your age,” Lady Ashleigh declared, “that is the sort of correspondence which you should find interesting.”