'Oh,' she said, relieved, 'if they come in five minutes or so, you'll see! The dinner won't be a penny the worse. Jules is such a wizard. All I mind is seeing Freddy fussed.' She turned with an engaging smile to her minister again. 'Freddy has the most angelic temper except when he's hungry—bless him! Now that he's talking to Vida Levering, Freddy'll forget whether it's before dinner or after.'
'What! what!' said a brisk old gentleman, with a face like a peculiarly wicked monkey. He abandoned Mrs. Townley with enthusiasm in order to say to his hostess, 'Show me the witch who can work that spell!'
'Oh, dear, I'm afraid,' said Mrs. Freddy, prettily, 'I'm dreadfully afraid that means you're starving! Does it make you morose as it does Freddy?' she asked, with an air of comic terror. 'Then we won't wait.' She tossed out one arm with a funny little movement that sent her thin draperies floating as though towards the bell.
'My dear lady!' the old gentleman arrested her. 'I hunger, it is true, but only for knowledge.' In a silent but rather horrible laugh he wrinkled up his aged nose, which was quite enough wrinkled and sufficiently 'up' already. 'Who is the witch?'
'Why, we were talking about a member of your family.' She turned again to the new minister. 'Mr. Fox-Moore—Sir—oh! how absurd! I was going to introduce two pillars of the State to one another. I must be anxious about those late people, after all.'
'As a matter of fact you and I never have met,' said Haycroft, cordially taking old Mr. Fox-Moore's hand. 'Beside you permanent officials we ephemeræ, the sport of parties——'
'Ah, that's all right!' Mrs. Freddy's head, poised an instant on one side, seemed to say.
'Who is it? Who is late?' demanded Mrs. Graham Townley, whose entrance into the conversation produced the effect of the sudden opening of window and door on a windy day. People shrink a little in the draught, and all light, frivolous things are blown out of the way. English people stand this sort of thing very much as they stand the actual draughts in their cold houses. They feel it to be good for them on the whole. Mrs. Graham Townley was acknowledged to be a person of much character. Though her interest in public affairs was bounded only by the limits of the Empire, she had found time to reform the administration of a great London hospital. Also she was related to a great many people. In the ultra smart set she of course had no raison d'être, but in the older society it was held meet that these things be. So that when she put her question, not only was she not ignored, but each one felt it a serious thing for anybody to be so late that Mrs. Graham Townley instead of button-holing some one with, 'What, now, should you say is the extent of the Pan-Islamic influence in Egypt?' should be reduced to asking, 'Who are we waiting for?'
'It's certain to be a man,' said Lady John Ulland, as calmly convinced as one who states a natural law.
'Why?' asked her niece, the charming girl in rose colour.