That query had hardly left her lips, when Amy rushed in. "I've done it, Peggy, I've done it."
"You don't mean you've got the door open?"
"Yes, I have. I was just ready to give up and then I tried again and something clicked and the deed was done."
"And Priscilla's found the back-door key. Now Ruth will come with the locksmith."
They heard footsteps even as she spoke, and then Ruth's voice explaining to the locksmith that the only way to get into the house was by the window. Peggy went to meet them, assuming a very dignified air that she might not look sheepish.
"We succeeded in opening the doors that were troubling us, but there's a key broken off in a lock upstairs. Since you're here, you might as well attend to that. Will you take him upstairs Ruth? It's the door of the den." And then Peggy beat a retreat to the kitchen, leaving Ruth to propitiate the locksmith, who had left his shop reluctantly, yielding to her impassioned representations of the urgency of the case.
Dinner was more than half an hour late, and failed to justify Peggy's reputation as a cook, for some dishes were over-salted and others entirely lacking that essential ingredient, while the pudding was so overdone that it was necessary to remove the top layer, and conceal deficiencies by a quite superfluous meringue. But since Peggy had planned her dinner party with the purpose of distracting Ruth's thoughts, she had every reason to consider it an unqualified success.