Two days after the letter was dispatched came the answer, typewritten, surprisingly personal, and in places curiously worded. There was an excuse for that, for the heading on the note-paper was
On the third day Mirabelle Leicester stepped down from a ’bus in the City Road and entered the unimposing door of Romance, and an inquisitive chauffeur who saw her enter followed and overtook her in the lobby.
“Excuse me, madame—are you Mrs. Carter?”
Mirabelle did not look like Mrs. Anybody.
“No,” she said, and gave her name.
“But you’re the lady from Hereford . . . you live with your mother at Telford Park . . . ?”
The man was so agitated that she was not annoyed by his insistence. Evidently he had instructions to meet a stranger and was fearful of missing her.
“You have made a mistake—I live at Heavytree Farm, Daynham—with my aunt.”
“Is she called Carter?”
She laughed.