Iris desired to know all about the secretary, and Lashmar described a neutral-tinted, pen-wielding young woman, much interested in social reform.
"Perhaps I shall come to know Lady Ogram," said Iris, modestly. "I may meet her at Mrs. Toplady's. That would be delightful! I should be able to follow everything much better."
"To be sure," was the rather dry response. "But I shall be surprised if the old lady stays long, or sees many people. Her health is of the shakiest, and London life would be a dangerous experiment, I should say. I don't at all know why she's coming, unless it is to see doctors."
"Oh, I do hope she'll be careful," panted Iris. "What a terrible thing it would be if she died suddenly—terrible for you, I mean. She ought to have some one to look well after her, indeed she ought. I wish"—this with a laugh—"she would take me as companion. Oh, wouldn't I have a care of her precious health!"
When he drove to Bunting's Hotel, he had no thought of seeing anyone but Lady Ogram and Constance; the possibility that there might be other guests at luncheon did not enter his mind. Conducted to a private drawing-room on the first floor, he became aware, as the door opened, of a handsome girl in animated conversation with his two friends; she seemed so very much at home that he experienced a little shock, as of the unaccountable, the disconcerting, and his eyes with difficulty turned from this new face to that of the venerable hostess. Here again a surprise awaited him; Lady Ogram looked so much younger than when he took leave of her at Rivenoak, that he marvelled at the transformation. Notwithstanding her appearance she spoke in a strained, feeble voice, often indistinct; one noticed, too, that she was harder of hearing. Having pressed his hand—a very faint pressure, though meant for cordial—Lady Ogram turned a look upon the bright young lady near her, and said, with a wheezy emphasis:
"Let me introduce you to my niece, Miss Tomalin."
Never had Lashmar known her so ceremonious; never had she appeared so observant of his demeanor during the social formality. Overcome with astonishment at what he heard, he bowed stiffly, but submissively. The autocrat watched him with severe eyes, and only when his salute was accomplished did the muscles of her visage again relax. Mechanically, he turned to bow in the same way to Miss Bride, but she at once offered her hand with a friendly, "How do you do?"
"My niece, Miss Tomalin." Where on earth did this niece spring from? Everybody understood that Lady Ogram was alone in the world. Constance had expressly affirmed it—yet here was she smiling in the most natural way possible, as if nieces abounded at Rivenoak. Dyce managed to talk, but he heard not a word from his own lips, and his eyes, fixed on Lady Ogram's features, noted the indubitable fact that her complexion was artificial. This astounding old woman, at the age of four score, had begun to paint? So confused was Dyce's state of mind, that, on perceiving the truth of the matter, he all but uttered an exclamation. Perhaps only Miss Tomalin's voice arrested him.
"My aunt has told me all about your new Socialism, Mr. Lashmar. You can't think how it has put my mind at rest! One has so felt that one ought to be a Socialist, and yet there were so many things one couldn't accept. It's delightful to see everything reconciled—all one wants to keep and all the new things that must come!"
May had been developing. She spoke with a confidence which, on softer notes, emulated that of her aged relative; she carried her head with a conscious stateliness which might have been—perhaps was—deliberately studied after the portrait in the Rivenoak dining-room. Harmonious with this change was that in her attire; fashion had done its best to transform the aspiring young provincial into a metropolitan Grace; the result being that Miss Tomalin seemed to have grown in stature, to exhibit a more notable symmetry, so that she filled more space in the observer's eye than heretofore. For all that, she looked no older; her self-assertion, though more elaborate, was not a bit more impressive, and the phrases she used, the turn of her sentences, the colour of her speech, very little resembled anything that would have fallen from a damsel bred in the modish world. Her affectation was shot through with spontaneity; her impertinence had a juvenile seriousness which made it much more amusing than offensive; and a feminine charm in her, striving to prevail over incongruous elements, made clear appeal to the instincts of the other sex.