“Then let them stay,” answered Edith decidedly. “I can’t eat my dinner before those memorials of the dead. I suppose he has not brought a mummy too.”
“It seems that he had one, dear, but was obliged to leave it behind, because they would not have it on board the ship unless he would pay for it at what he calls ‘corpse-rate.’”
“There is always something to be thankful for,” said Edith, as she went to take off her hat.
When, however, she came down to luncheon, and found the great bronze Osiris standing among the plates on the sideboard, her sense of gratitude was lessened, but as Rupert was delighted with the effect, she made no comment.
Whilst they were at their meal a note arrived for Rupert, whose brow puckered at the sight of the handwriting which he remembered well enough.
“Who is it from, dear?” asked Mrs. Ullershaw, when he had read it.
“Lord Devene,” he answered shortly. “He wants Edith and myself to dine this evening, and says that he has got the Under-Secretary for War, Lord Southwick, to meet me. Of course I can’t go and leave you alone the first night I am at home. I’ll write and say so.”
“Let me see the note first, dear. Edith, you read it; I have not got my spectacles.”
So she read:
Dear Rupert,—Welcome home, and, my dear fellow, a hundred congratulations! You have done splendidly. I hear your praises on all sides, and I am very proud of you. But I want to tell you all this in person. Come and dine to-night with Edith at eight. I have just met Southwick, the Under-Secretary for War, at the club, and he is most anxious to have a private talk with you before you report yourself, so he has put off something or other in order to meet you. I took the liberty of saying that he was sure to do this, as I knew that you could not as yet have made any engagements.—