"I'll go to-night," Frobisher muttered as he laid aside his pipe. "I dare say I can invent some ingenious excuse for calling at this time of night."
He passed from the conservatory into the hall and from thence to the drawing-room. Lady Frobisher was there, and Angela standing before the fire-place drawing on a long pair of gloves. The big Empire clock over the mantel chimed the three-quarters past ten.
"Where are you going at this time of the night?" Frobisher asked.
"Lady Warrendale's," Lady Frobisher said without looking up from her paper. "We are waiting for Nelly Blyson. We shall not start before eleven."
"Then you can take me and put me down at the corner of Belgrave Square," Frobisher said. "I've got a little business in that direction. Didn't I hear Arnott's voice?"
Lady Frobisher said nothing; she seemed to be deeply engrossed in her paper. Angela lifted her dainty head just a little bit higher.
"He certainly called," she said, "to see me. But he is not likely to come again."
Frobisher's teeth showed behind one of his sudden grins. He wanted to grip those white arms, to leave the small marks of his fingers behind. But there were better ways than that.
"So you mean that you have refused him?" he asked.
"Definitely and finally," Angela replied. "I paid him the compliment of treating him like a gentleman, but I might have spared myself the trouble. If you ask that man here again when I am present, I shall be compelled to leave the house and take up my quarters elsewhere."