Mrs. Drover heaved a faint sigh of relief, but her daughter, shrugging impatient shoulders out of her too-willing shoulder-straps, grumbled: “Then why doesn’t Aunt Kate come too? You’ll talk her to death if you all stay here all the evening.”
Nollie Tresselton smiled. “So much for what Lilla thinks of the charm of our conversation!”
Lilla shrugged again. “Not your conversation particularly. I hate talking. I only like noises that don’t mean anything.”
“Does that rule out talking—quite?”
“Well, I hate cleverness, then; you and Anne are always being clever. You’ll tire Aunt Kate a lot more than Madge’s party would.” She stood there, large and fair, the features of her small inexpressive face so like her mother’s, the lines of her relaxed inviting body so different from Mrs. Drover’s righteous curves. Her painted eyes rested curiously on Mrs. Clephane. “You don’t suppose she spent her time in Europe sitting at home like this, do you?” she asked the company with simplicity.
There was a stricken pause. Kate filled it by saying with a laugh: “You’ll think I might as well have, when I tell you I’ve never in my life been to a cabaret-party.”
Lilla’s stare deepened; she seemed hardly able to take the statement in. “What did you do with your evenings, then?” she questioned, after an apparently hopeless search for alternatives.
Mrs. Drover had grown pink and pursed-up; even Nollie Tresselton’s quick smile seemed congealed. But Kate felt herself carrying it off on wings. “Very often I just sat at home alone, and thought of you all here, and of our first evening together—this very evening.”
She saw Anne colour a little, and felt the quick pressure of her arm. That they should have found each other again, she and Anne!
The butler threw open the drawing-room door with solemnity. “A gentleman has called in his motor for Mrs. Gates; he sends word that he’s in a hurry, madam, please.”