“Or-r-der,” drawled the Speaker. And the clamour died.
“Bon!” chuckled Madame Valleau. “He has the courage to speak, that Dilling—and behind his words, there is the mind to think!”
“Very good,” pronounced the ladies surrounding Marjorie. “Most interesting! Quite excellent, indeed!”
“Thank you,” returned Marjorie, so stiffly that they looked at her in amazement, wondering if success had suddenly turned her head.
They wondered still more when a messenger approached her, delivered a note and said there would be an answer. Eyebrows were raised, and incredulity was telegraphed from one to the other of the group.
“What’s this?” asked Lady Denby, in what she conceived to be a playful tone. “Have we an admirer in the House?”
A furious blush and confused stammering was Marjorie’s reply. With one of those rare flashes of insight for which she could never account, she knew that in view of the recent discussion about Sullivan and her defence of him, he was suspected of being the writer of that letter. She didn’t blame the women in the least, for she suspected him, herself.
But she was mistaken. The scrawling signature of Hebe Barrington met her eye as she hastily turned the last page, and the body of the communication was an invitation to supper.
“I have persuaded Mr. Dilling to join us,” the letter announced, “and he asked me to say that we would meet in his room, at once. Please come!”
“Mrs. Barrington has invited me to supper,” Marjorie explained, with a noticeable moderation of stiffness. “I think I will say good night and hurry on.”