“If she would, on account of Leila?” Mrs. Lidcote murmured.
“Well, yes. In her official position. But luckily she’s a friend of the Barkleys. And finding the Gileses and Fresbies here will make it all right. The times have changed!” Susy Suffern indulgently summed up.
Mrs. Lidcote smiled. “Yes; a few years ago it would have seemed improbable that I should ever again be dining with Mary Giles and Harriet Fresbie and Mrs. Lorin Boulger.”
Miss Suffern did not at the moment seem disposed to enlarge upon this theme; and after an interval of silence Mrs. Lidcote suddenly resumed: “Do they know I’m here, by the way?”
The effect of her question was to produce in Miss Suffern an exaggerated access of peering and frowning. She twitched the tea-things about, fingered her bugles, and, looking at the clock, exclaimed amazedly: “Mercy! Is it seven already?”
“Not that it can make any difference, I suppose,” Mrs. Lidcote continued. “But did Leila tell them I was coming?”
Miss Suffern looked at her with pain. “Why, you don’t suppose, dearest, that Leila would do anything—”
Mrs. Lidcote went on: “For, of course, it’s of the first importance, as you say, that Mrs. Lorin Boulger should be favorably impressed, in order that Wilbour may have the best possible chance of getting Borne.”
“I told Leila you’d feel that, dear. You see, it’s actually on your account—so that they may get a post near you—that Leila invited Mrs. Boulger.”
“Yes, I see that.” Mrs. Lidcote, abruptly rising from her seat, turned her eyes to the clock. “But, as you say, it’s getting late. Oughtn’t we to dress for dinner?”