“What did you ask?” she said.
Betty leaned still further forward.
“Can you tell me——” she began and stopped. A sense of stricture in the throat stopped her, as her eyes took in the washed-out colour of the thin face, the washed-out colour of the thin hair—thin drab hair, dragged in straight, hard unbecomingness from the forehead and cheeks.
Was it true that her heart was thumping, as she had heard it said that agitation made hearts thump?
She began again.
“Can you—tell me if—Lady Anstruthers is at home?” she inquired. As she said it she felt the blood surge up from the furious heart, and the hand she had laid on the handle of the door of the brougham clutched it involuntarily.
The dowdy little woman answered her indifferently, staring at her a little.
“I am Lady Anstruthers,” she said.
Bettina opened the carriage door and stood upon the ground.
“Go on to the house,” she gave order to the coachman, and, with a somewhat startled look, he drove away.