“Oh, she’s an old maid, and she is simply horror-struck, and can do nothing but hold up her hands and say ‘Dear, dear, how dreadful!’ and refuse admittance to the woman. But we girls can’t be satisfied like that, and so I thought of you. What would you suggest?”
Audrey considered a moment.
“Supposing I were to see her?” she said.
“Oh, would you? That would be sweet of you! We don’t dare to see her ourselves, and yet we don’t like to take it for granted that—that——”
“Next time she comes—if she does come—give her—let her be given, my address, and refer her to me. Hush, here comes the tea. And we must call our rabbit-lover in.”
They went to the window, and made signs to the ostentatiously distant Sir Harry that he might come in, and they had such a merry hour together that it was with difficulty they could make up their minds to break up the party. At last, however, Audrey put Pamela into the pony-carriage and drove her over to Staines, where she could take the train direct to within a short distance of her school, and Sir Harry, very reluctantly, bade them good-bye, with many hints that he should like to come again.
Audrey was quite cheered by the merry young people, who were, after all, of her own generation, though circumstances had combined to make her feel many years older.
But her pleasure was short-lived. There was a card-playing evening in store for her, at which Diggs was, of course, not present. But two days later she received another indignant letter from Lord Clanfield, complaining of her lack of good faith, in that his two sons had been playing cards at her house the whole of the night through.
Audrey was intensely indignant at this letter, and was convinced, since the young Angmerings had certainly not been among the guests on the night he mentioned, that they had themselves deceived their father, and given her address to hide their real whereabouts.
She began a letter to him, at least as indignant as his own, but could not satisfy herself with the wording of it. She tried again and again, and finally made up her mind to give up the attempt and to descend upon the angry father in person, and force him to retract his accusation and to apologise for it.