'The Elusive One,' said Mrs. Freddy.
'Not Miss——'
'Yes; before luncheon.'
Dick Farnborough glanced quickly at the clock, and then his eyes went questing up the great staircase. Lady John had met the chorus of disapproval with—
'She must be in London by three, she says.'
Lord John stared. 'To-day? Why she only came late last night! What must she go back for, in the name of——'
'Well, that I didn't ask her. But it must be something important, or she would stay and talk over the plans for the new Shelter.'
Farnborough had pulled out his cigarette case and stepped out through the window into the garden. But he went not as one who means to take a stroll and enjoy a smoke, rather as a man on a mission.
A few minutes after, the desultory conversation in the hall was arrested by the sound of voices near the windows.
They were in full view now—Vida Levering, hatless, a cool figure in pearl-grey with a red umbrella; St. John Greatorex, wearing a Panama hat, talking and gesticulating with a small book, in which his fingers still kept the place; Farnborough, a little supercilious, looking on.