“And where’s Lily?”
“She, too, is off having a good time. Fräulein was invited by some German friends who were giving a Kinder-sinfonie. Awful things, if you want my opinion. She asked if she might go and take Lily, and the poor child was so eager about it I thought I would just for once let her sit up late. She has so few pleasures of the kind.”
Mrs. Foss had helped the soup, with a ladle, out of a tureen.
6It was after her husband and she had emptied their soup-plates in companionable silence that, leaning back to wait for the next course, she asked her regular daily question.
“Well, anything new? Anything interesting at the consulate?”
Mr. Foss seemed in good faith to be searching his mind. Then he answered vaguely:
“No; nothing in particular.” All at once he smiled a smile of remembrance. “Yes, I saw some Americans to-day.” He nodded, after an interval, with an appearance of relish. “The real thing.”
“In what way, Jerome? But, first of all, who were they?”
“Wait a moment. I stuck their cards in my pocket to show you. They came to see me at the consulate. No, they are in my other coat. One of them was Mrs. Something Hawthorne, the other Miss Estelle Something.”
“What did they want?”