"I ordered those muffins your father likes so much," she said, in a tone of unwonted wistfulness. "Perhaps we'd better send them out to be kept hot."
Nona agreed that it would be better; but as she had her hand on the bell the sound of an approaching motor checked her. The dogs woke with a happy growling and bustled out. "There they are after all!" Pauline said.
There was a minute or two of silence, unmarked by the usual yaps of welcome; then a sound like the depositing of wraps and an umbrella; then Powder on the threshold, for once embarrassed and at a loss.
"Mr. Wyant, madam."
"Mr. Wyant?"
"Mr. Arthur Wyant. He seemed to think you were probably expecting him," Powder continued, as if lengthening the communication in order to give her time.
Mrs. Manford, seizing it, rose to the occasion with one of her heroic wing-beats. "Yes—I was. Please show him in," she said, without risking a glance at her daughter.
Arthur Wyant came in, tall and stooping in his shabby well-cut clothes, a nervous flush on his cheekbones. He paused, and sent a half-bewildered stare about the room—a look which seemed to say that when he had made up his mind that he must see Pauline he had failed to allow for the familiarity of the setting in which he was to find her.
"You've hardly changed anything here," he said abruptly, in the far-off tone of a man slowly coming back to consciousness.
"How are you, Arthur? I'm sorry you've had such a rainy day for your trip," Mrs. Manford responded, with an easy intonation intended to reach the retreating Powder.