She nodded and said no more. He was fifty-five, but that didn't matter one way or the other, she felt.
As she went downstairs the telephone again rang and she answered it. It was Grisel, apparently in a great hurry.
"Mother, darling, I've just met Oliver, and he says he's coming to the house this evening—and I don't want to see him."
"Why, dear?" her mother asked, looking gently and kindly at the telephone.
"Well—I can't go into it on the telephone—I'm telephoning you from the Underground. Sir John Barclay is here. He was at the play too, you know, and I'm dining with him. Yes, alone. Yes I am, mother. No, I don't have to dress, we're going to a grill-room somewhere. Oh, please don't fuss!" The girl's voice was irritable and sharp. "Do you understand? Tell Oliver I can't get back."
"I shall tell him," Mrs. Walbridge said firmly, "that you're dining with Sir John Barclay."
Grisel made a little inarticulate sound, and then her mother heard her sigh impatiently. "All right. Just as you like. It doesn't matter, but for goodness' sake don't let him stay late. I must go now, darling. You'll make it all right, won't you? Good-bye."
She rang off, and her mother stood looking at the telephone as if it were a human being, as most people have found themselves doing at one time or other.
She dined alone, not even seeing Walbridge before he slipped out while she was in her attic-room writing. Very soon after dinner Oliver arrived, and although he said little and insisted on being very merry, telling her some ridiculous stories, she had an unhappy evening. She had tried to avoid telling him where Grisel was, but it had been impossible, for there was something uncanny about him, he was such a good guesser, and as soon as she had explained that Griselda was out, he had known all about it.
"Dining with Sir John Barclay, I suppose, in some grill-room," he said shortly.