My Dear Mr. Markham: I must see you at once on a matter of importance. Can you come up this afternoon for a dish of tea? I'm sending my car for you in the hope that your engagements will not forbid. If anything prevents to-day, won't you lunch with me to-morrow at two? Very sincerely yours, Sarah Hammond.
Markham frowned. There was no getting out of it, it seemed.
"You have Mrs. Hammond's car below?" he said to the waiting footman.
"Yes, sir. I was to get an answer or take you up, if you could go."
"I'll go. I'll be down in a moment."
The man retired, and Markham, somewhat mystified, reread Mrs. Hammond's note and got into this hat and overcoat. A matter of importance! Another commission, perhaps—she had already got him two. And yet it seemed, had it been that, she would have expressed herself differently.
He went down and got into the elegantly appointed limousine and in a while, too short to solve his problem, was set down under the porte cochère of his patronne.
He found her at the tea table, a stout but puissant figure in mauve and black. In the studio she had not bothered him. She had been merely an amiable millionaire, in pearls and black satin. Here in the majestic drawing-room, with her small court gathered about her, she dominated him. He hesitated a second at the door before going forward, but when she saw him she rose at once and excused herself to her guests. After their departure, she motioned him to a chair beside her and entered without delay upon her subject. Her manner was kindly, if restrained, and he saw at once that the matter was of a personal nature.
"I suppose, Mr. Markham, you think it rather curious that I should have sent for you in such haste, but I shouldn't have done so had I not thought it necessary. You understand that, don't you?"
Markham murmured something and waited for her to go on.