As she spoke she glanced over his shoulder, and for a moment her eyes met those of a man standing behind him. He was looking at her deliberately and intently, and suddenly, to her surprise, he held up a twisted slip of paper in his hand. Then he pointed to the floor and turned away. It had been done so quickly that for a while she could hardly believe her eyes. One of the men, trying to pass a secret note.... To her.... What on earth was the matter with everybody?...
Once again the man looked at her with the suspicion of a smile on his face, and she frowned quickly. He was impertinent, this youngster, and she turned to her fiancé. She remembered now that the last time she had been round she had seen him working on a lathe: that it had struck her then that he had seemed different from the others—his hands, oily though they were: the cool unembarrassed look in his eyes: his way of speaking.... Almost as if he had been her equal.... And now he was presuming on her kindness then....
Her hands clenched involuntarily as she looked at her fiancé.
"What is the name of that man with his back half towards us, over there?" she demanded. For the moment the "fancied grievance" was forgotten in more personal matters.
The Honourable Herbert, thankful for the respite, swung round. Then as he saw the subject of her question his jaw set in an ugly line.
"John Morrison," he answered, shortly. "And if I had my way I'd sack him on the spot. A useless, argumentative, insubordinate swine...."
And it was as this graceful eulogy concluded that John Morrison looked at her again. Her fiancé had moved away, and she was standing alone. For a moment she hesitated: then she, too, turned to join the rest of the party. And lying on the ground where she had been, was her handkerchief....
It was done on the spur of the moment—a feminine impulse. And the instant she had done it, she regretted it. But there had been something in her fiancé's voice as he spoke that had come as a shock to her: something ugly and vicious; something new as far as she was concerned. Though what that had to do with John Morrison passing her a note was obscure.
"You dropped your handkerchief, Miss Frenton." A courteous, well-bred voice was speaking close behind her, and she turned slowly to find John Morrison holding it out to her.
"Thank you," she answered. Rolled up inside it she could feel the twisted wisp of paper, and as the Honourable Herbert came up with an angry look on his face she hesitated.