"You must come, Freddy," she said. "Lady Harrowfield wants to begin her rubber."
Barbara, knowing what this move meant, and blushing for her cousin's rudeness, nervously introduced Theodora to her.
"How d' do," said Mildred, staring over her head. "Don't detain Lord Wensleydown, please, because Lady Harrowfield hates to be kept waiting."
Theodora rose and smiled, while she said to Barbara: "I am rather tired. Mayn't I go to my room for a little rest before dinner?"
"Take him, Lady Mildred, do," said Hector; "we don't want him," and he laughed gayly. His beautiful, tender angel might be a match for these people after all. At any rate, he would be at her side to protect her from their claws.
Lord Wensleydown frowned. Mildred was being a damned nuisance, he said to himself, and he insisted upon accompanying Theodora to the bottom of the great staircase, which rose to magnificent galleries in the hall adjoining the saloon.
Sir Patrick had advanced and engaged Josiah in conversation.
He knew his guests' ways and how they would boycott him, and, with a serious question like those Australian shares on the tapis, he was not going to have Josiah insulted and ruffled just yet.
"Don't stay up-stairs all the time," Hector had managed to whisper, while Mildred and Lord Wensleydown stood arguing; "they are sure not to dine till nine; there are two hours before you need dress, and we can certainly find some nice sitting-room to talk in."
But Theodora, with immense self-denial, had answered: "No, I want to write a long letter to papa and my sisters. I won't come down again until dinner."