At this time Hugh Alston had a very poor opinion of Miss Meredyth. He did not deny her loveliness. He could not; no man in his senses and gifted with eyesight could. But the placid prettiness of Marjorie appealed to him far more than the cold, disdainful beauty of the young woman he had called ungenerous, and who had in her turn called him a cad.
It was Mrs. Wenham herself who opened the hall door of the house in Bemrose Square to Mr. Hugh Alston at noon on the day following.
Though certainly not dressed in the height of fashion, and by no means an exquisite, Mr. Hugh Alston had that about him that suggested birth and large possessions. Mrs. Wenham beamed on him, cheating herself for a moment into the belief that he had come to add one more to the select circle of persons she alluded to as her “paying guests.”
Her face fell a little when he asked for Miss Meredyth.
“Oh, Miss Meredyth has gone to work,” she said.
“To work?”
“Yes, she’s a clerk or something in the City. The office is that of Philip Slotman and Company, Number sixteen, Gracebury.”
“You think that I could see her there?” asked Hugh, who had little knowledge of City offices and their routine and rules, so far as hirelings are concerned.
“I suppose you could; you are a friend of hers?”
He nodded.