CHAPTER XIV
‘HEAR MY PRAYER!’
Miss Travers did not, after all, succeed in cornering Gladys at the garden-party, but she did contrive to get herself asked to stay later, and without much difficulty (she would probably have found it far more difficult to go with the rest—hostesses were tenacious of Miss Travers); and after dinner, when the ladies went off to the drawing-room, her stubborn waiting was at last rewarded.
Some other people had stayed to dinner also, in the same informal way, and among them one or two of Granville’s friends. These young men had come to the garden-party by no advice of Gran’s—in fact, those who chanced to have mentioned to him Lady Bligh’s invitation he had frankly told to stay away and not to be fools. But, having come, he insisted on their staying. ‘For,’ he said, ‘you deserve compensation, you fellows; and the Judge’s wine, though I say it, hasn’t a fault—unless it’s spoiling a man for his club’s.’
And while the young men put the truth of this statement to a more earnest test than could be applied before the ladies left the table, Miss Travers, in the drawing-room, at last had Gladys to herself. And Miss Travers was sadly disappointed—as, perhaps, she deserved to be. Gladys had very little to say to her. As a matter of fact, it was no less irksome to the Bride to listen than to talk herself. But they happened to be sitting close to the piano, and it was not long before a very happy thought struck Gladys, which she instantly expressed in the abrupt question:—
‘You sing, Miss Travers, don’t you?’
‘In a way! I’ve heard all about the way!’ Gladys smiled; Miss Travers thought the smile sadly changed since yesterday. ‘Sing now.’
‘You really want me to?’
‘Yes, really. And you must.’ Gladys opened the piano.