"Ring, then, please," she requested, and passed into her little sitting-room, beyond.
Isabel followed curiously, ensconcing herself in one of the easy-chairs and idly twitching blossoms from the hyacinths in a bowl near her. All day she had been especially nervous and irritable, her least movements were characterized by an impatience almost feverish.
The messenger who appeared on the threshold was Jack Rupert, not in the familiar guise of the Mercury's mechanician, but Rupert at leisure; a small, immaculate figure as New Yorkese as Broadway itself. The movement that brought Flavia across to him was impulsive as a confident child's and accompanied by a candid radiance of glance and smile flashed straight into the visitor's black eyes. She had no attention to spare to the fact that Isabel also had risen.
"You have been so good as to bring a message to me, Mr. Rupert?" she questioned happily.
"I ain't denying it was a pleasure to come," he made gracious reply, with his slight drawl of speech. "I've been given this to deliver to Miss Rose, from Mr. Gerard, under orders to bring the answer back unless it was preferred to send it by Mr. Rose, junior, to-morrow."
"This" was a letter. As Flavia held out her hand to receive it, Isabel reached her side and seized her wrist so fiercely as to bruise the soft flesh.
"It is mine!" she panted. "Give it to me—it is mine!"
Flavia stood still, looking at the other girl with slow-gathering, incredulous resentment and wonder.
"Yours? You expected this from Mr. Gerard, Isabel?"