"Oh, Lord Peter!" Mrs. Bonsor gushed. "I hope you and Miss Brent will dine with us——"
Patricia shut the library door without waiting to hear Bowen's reply.
At five o'clock she gave up the unequal struggle with infant mortality statistics and walked listlessly across the Park to Galvin House. She was tired and dispirited. It was the weather, she told herself, London in June could be very trying, then there had been all that fuss over The Morning Post announcement. At Galvin House she knew the same ordeal was awaiting her that she had passed through at Eaton Square. Mrs. Craske-Morton would be effusive, Miss Wangle would unbend, Miss Sikkum would simper, Mr. Bolton would be facetious, and all the others would be exactly what they had been all their lives, only a little more so as a result of The Morning Post paragraph.
Only the fact of Miss Wangle taking breakfast in bed had saved Patricia from the ordeal at breakfast. Miss Wangle was the only resident at Galvin House who regularly took The Morning Post, it being "the dear bishop's favourite paper."
Arrived at Galvin House Patricia went straight to her room. Dashing past Gustave, who greeted her with "Oh, mees!" struggling at the same time to extract from his pocket a newspaper. Patricia felt that she should scream. Had everyone in Galvin House bought a copy of that day's Morning Post, and would they all bring it out of their pockets and point out the passage to her? She sighed wearily.
Suddenly she jumped up from the bed where she had thrown herself, seized her writing-case and proceeded to write feverishly. At the end of half an hour she read and addressed three letters, stamping two of them. The first was to the editor of The Morning Post, and ran:—
"DEAR SIR,
"In your issue of to-day's date you make an announcement regarding a marriage having been arranged between Lord Peter Bowen and myself, which is entirely inaccurate.
"I am given to understand that this announcement was inserted on the authority of my aunt, Miss Adelaide Brent, and I must leave you to take what action you choose in relation to her. As for myself, I will ask you to be so kind as to insert a contradiction of the statement in your next issue.
"I am,
"Yours faithfully,
"PATRICIA BRENT."