"Obey you, Lord Derrington?"
"Yes. I have tried to conduct this interview quietly, Mrs. Ward, and to hint that your wiser plan is to be silent, but----"
"I don't want hints. I wish for plain speaking," raged the little woman. "How dare you address me like this?"
The old gentleman leaned forward suddenly and whispered a short sentence in her ear. Mrs. Ward's face turned pearly white and she tottered to a chair, closing her eyes as she fell into it. Derrington surveyed her with a pitiless expression.
"You will be silent about Brendon?" he asked.
"Yes," moaned Mrs. Ward. "I will say nothing."
When Derrington departed Mrs. Ward retired to bed after canceling her engagements for the evening. For twenty-four hours she stopped there, explaining to Dorothy that she was taking a rest cure. It apparently did her good, for on the evening of the day appointed for the meeting at the Cecil she arose looking bright and quite herself again. She had quite got over the fright given to her by Derrington, and, when she saw him later, treated him quite in her old manner. On his side the old gentleman made no difference, but he wondered how she was carrying herself so boldly. At once it occurred to his suspicious mind that there was some reason for this defiant behavior, and he determined to watch her. For this purpose he joined the party.
"It is the first time I have been to a music-hall for years," he explained to Dorothy; "but Walter has been talking so much about this new dancer that I felt I must see her."
"Why did you not dine with us at the Cecil?" asked Dorothy.
"I always prefer to dine at home, my dear young lady. Besides, it does not do for an old man to wag his gray beard uninvited among the young."