“I am coming down this afternoon,” she said, “to go through the safes. Please be there in case I want you. You will not forget, in case you should hear anything of Mr. Macheson, that I desire to be informed.”
He took his leave humiliated and angry. He had started the game with a wrong move—retrievable, perhaps, but annoying. Wilhelmina passed into the library, where Lady Peggy, in a wonderful morning robe, was leaning back in an easy-chair dictating letters to Captain Austin.
“You dear woman!” she exclaimed, “don’t interrupt us, will you? I have found an ideal secretary, writes everything I tell him, and spells quite decently considering his profession. My conscience is getting lighter every moment.”
“And my heart heavier,” Austin grumbled. “A most flirtatious correspondence yours.”
She laughed softly.
“My next shall be to my dressmaker,” she declared. “Such a charming woman, and so trustful. Behave yourself nicely, and you shall go with me to call on her next week, and see her mannikins. By the bye, Wilhelmina, am I hostess or are you?”
“You, by all means,” Wilhelmina answered. “I shall go to-morrow or the next day. Is any one coming to lunch?”
“His Grace, I fancy—no one else.”
Wilhelmina yawned.