Lady Jim raced her car out of Curzon Street, down Park Lane, and into Piccadilly, where she amused herself with dodging nervous people and shaving the wheels of vehicles drawn by humble quadrupeds. The chauffeur sat grimly silent, expecting an almost certain spill, with the calm of a fatalist. He knew it would come some day, in spite of his mistress's skilful driving, but he neither worried nor remonstrated. He was paid for a silent tongue and healthy nerves, and if his life was insured rather heavily, considering his profession, that was no one's business but his wife's, and she had already decided how to spend the insurance money. But the woman need not have been so sure of such good fortune. Lady Jim did not mind hurting other people, but she had an uncommonly good notion of how to preserve the only neck she possessed.
When the car reached Bond Street, Lady Jim, who was as calm as though she had finished a donkey-ride, stepped down and entered a jeweller's shop. Lately she had paid a trifle off his bill, and thought herself entitled to double the gross amount. The jeweller, knowing the Duke of Pentland had fifty thousand a year, and that Lady Jim was too pretty a daughter-in-law not to get her own way with so gay an old nobleman, did not object to his customer's purchases. If Lady Jim could not pay the Duke would, so she was permitted to take away several objects for which she had no use. Then she went to select some new hats, and look at the latest thing in frocks. A call at certain other establishments resulted in the car being heaped with expensive trifles for Christmas presents. Afterwards the car whirled into Oxford Street, returned to Piccadilly, and stopped every now and then like a bird of prey. At some shops she was received with sickly smiles; at others, which she favoured for the first time with her custom, with rejoicing grins: but out of every place Lady Jim walked calmly, with a shopman in the rear bringing parcels to increase the baggage on the car. She achieved the whole afternoon's work without once opening her purse. Could Rothschild have financed things better?
At five o'clock, with lighted lamps and unabated speed, Lady Jim drove her machine to Berkeley Square, and, leaving the chauffeur to choke and shiver in the damp fog, walked into a dull-looking house to see her godmother, Lady Canvey. She wished to ask the advice of that kindly, shrewd old pagan, and was not at all pleased when she found the Rev. Lionel Kaimes, trying to lead Lady Canvey in the right way. He had been trying to guide her heavenward for the last year, but the bright-eyed old dame still danced along the primrose path with nimble feet and an appreciation of the agreeable people who were dancing along with her to perdition.
"Well, my dear," said Lady Canvey, submitting her withered cheek to a conventional kiss. "Lionel, here, has been speaking of the devil, and you appear. There's some truth in proverbs, it seems."
"Oh, Lady Canvey," sighed a soft voice at the old pagan's elbow.
"I forgot, Leah, this is my 'Philip you-are-but-mortal' companion. You have not met her before, and I don't think you'll seek her company again. She's not quite your sort, my dear, not quite your sort. Joan, come and show yourself."
In response to this order a slim, tall girl, with a serious face, came forward shyly, and put out a timid hand. She was plainly dressed in a black stuff gown, without colour or ornament. Her hands and feet were slim and small; she had wavy brown hair twisted into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and the features of her somewhat pale face were delicately shaped. On the whole an uncommonly pretty girl, Lady Jim decided, after taking in all this at a glance, but less seriousness and brighter smiles would improve her looks. She was like Pygmalion's statue before the goddess had flushed its cold whiteness with rosy blood.
"How are you?" asked Leah, nodding in a friendly way, but without shaking hands. "You are one of Lady Canvey's discoveries, I suppose."
"My discovery," put in Lionel, cheerfully, and with a proud glance at the white-rose beauty of the girl. "Lady Canvey wanted a companion, and I brought her----"
"One of Fra Angelico's saints," finished Lady Jim, who was honest enough to confess inwardly that this ethereal loveliness was most attractive.