Jarvis returned.
"Miss Avice won't be down, sir, and I'm to fetch her up a pot of coffee, sir."
"Take it at once, and tell her I shall be up to see her presently." Jarvis vanished.
"I think I see a way to put pressure on her, that is if the morning hasn't already brought her back to her senses."
At four o'clock that afternoon, Avice Milbrey's ring brought Mrs. Van Geist's butler to the door.
"Sandon, is Aunt Cornelia at home?"
"Yes, Miss Milbrey, she's confined to her room h'account h'of a cold, miss."
"Thank heaven!"
"Yes, miss—certainly! will you go h'up to her?"
"And Mutterchen, dear, it was a regular bombshell," she concluded after she had fluttered some of the November freshness into Mrs. Van Geist's room, and breathlessly related the facts.