"My dear fellow," Dredlinton pleaded, "if you don't come, Phipps will think it is because of last night's affair and I shall get it in the neck. I'm in disgrace enough already. Do, for heaven's sake, oblige me, there's a good chap."
Wingate hesitated for a moment.
"Very well," he assented, "I will go. Is that all?"
"That's all, thanks."
"I should like to speak to your wife again," Wingate said.
"Sorry, she's just gone out," was the rather malicious reply. "I'd have kept her for you, if I'd known. So long!"
A knocking at the door,—a rather low, suggestive knocking. Wingate knew that it was an impossibility, but he nevertheless hastened to throw it open. Miss Flossie Lane stood there, very becomingly dressed in a tailor-made costume of covert coating. She wore a hat with yellow buttercups, and she had shown a certain reticence as regards cosmetics which amounted to a tacit acknowledgment of his prejudices.
"Miss Lane!" he exclaimed.
She looked at him with wide-open eyes.
"But you were expecting me, weren't you?" she asked. "I remembered your inviting me quite well, but I couldn't remember where you said, so I thought I'd better come and fetch you. I haven't done wrong, have I?"