Lady Jocelyn, Sir Franks, and Sir John, remained by the tables, but before the guests were out of ear-shot, the individual signalled from Olympus presented himself.
“There are times when one can’t see what else to do but to lie,” said her ladyship to Sir Franks, “and when we do lie the only way is to lie intrepidly.”
Turning from her perplexed husband, she exclaimed:
“Ah! Lawson?”
Captain Evremonde lifted his hat, declining an intimacy.
“Where is my wife, madam?”
“Have you just come from the Arctic Regions?”
“I have come for my wife, madam!”
His unsettled grey eyes wandered restlessly on Lady Jocelyn’s face. The Countess standing near the Duke, felt some pity for the wife of that cropped-headed, tight-skinned lunatic at large, but deeper was the Countess’s pity for Lady Jocelyn, in thinking of the account she would have to render on the Day of Judgement, when she heard her ladyship reply—
“Evelyn is not here.”