“Lady Plinlimon?”
“Yes, your Lordship. I have shown her into the smoking room.”
Jones had finished breakfast. He rose from the table, gathered the letters together, and with them in his hand followed Church from the breakfast room to the smoking room. A big woman in a big hat was seated in the arm chair facing the door.
She was forty if an hour. She had a large unpleasant face. A dominating face, fat featured, selfish, and made up by art.
“Oh, here you are,” said she as he entered and closed the door. “You see I’m out early.”
Jones nodded, went to the cigarette box, took a cigarette and lit it.
The woman got up and did likewise. She blew the cigarette smoke through her nostrils, and Jones, as he watched, knew that he detested her. Then she sat down again. She seemed nervous.
“Is it true what I hear, that your sister has left you and gone to live with your mother?”
“Yes,” said Jones, remembering the bird woman of yesterday morning.
“Well, you’ll have some peace now, unless you let her back—but I haven’t come to talk of her. It’s just this, I’m in a tight place.”