“I have a letter for you,” said Joan, “enclosed in one I received this morning from Mrs. Vansittart at The Hague. She is not coming to the Harberdashers' Assistants' Ball, and this is, I suppose, in answer to the card you sent her. She explains that she did not know your address.” And Joan looked at him with a doubting glance for a moment.
Cornish took the letter, but did not ask permission to open it. He held it in his hand, and asked Joan a question. “Did you see Saturday's Times?”
“Yes, of course I did,” she answered earnestly; “and of course, if it is true you will all wash your hands of the whole affair, I suppose. I was talking to Mr. Wade about it. He, however, placed both sides of the question before me in about ten words, and left me to take my choice—which I am incompetent to do.”
“Papa doesn't understand women,” put in Marguerite.
“Understands money, though,” retorted Major White, looking at her in somewhat severe astonishment, as if he had hitherto been unaware that she could speak.
Marguerite took the rebuff with demurely closed lips, a probable indication that the only retort she could think of was hardly fit for enunciation.
Then Cornish drifted out of the conversation, and presently moved away to the window, where he took the opportunity of opening Mrs. Vansittart's letter. Mr. Wade, near at hand, was explaining good-naturedly to Lady Ferriby that, with the best will in the world, five per cent, and perfect safety are not to be obtained nowadays.
“MON AMI” (wrote Mrs. Vansittart in French), “I take a daily promenade after coffee in the Oude Weg. I sit on the bench where you sat, and more often than not I see the sight that you saw. I am not a sentimental woman, but, after all, one has a heart, and this is a pitiful affair. Also, I have obtained from a reliable source the information that the new system of manufacture is more deadly than the old, which I have long suspected, and which, I believe, has passed through your mind as well. You and I went into this thing without le bon motif; but Providence is dealing out fresh hands, and you, at all events, hold cards that call for careful and bold playing. My friend, throw your Haberdashers over the wall and act without delay.”
“E. V.”
She enclosed a formal refusal of the invitation to the Haberdashers' Assistants' Ball.