"Mercy! It's the boy's birthday—I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!"
XV
In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece.
"No sign of her. She's simply forgotten."
Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock.
"Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake.
Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late."
Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come."
She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled.
"Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen.
"It's all so unlucky—my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements."