CHAPTER XVII
LADY PEGGY MAKES A FRIEND
One Sunday morning as Patricia was sitting in the Park watching the promenaders and feeling very lonely, she saw coming across the grass towards her Godfrey Elton accompanied by a pretty dark girl in an amber costume and a black hat. She bowed her acknowledgment of Elton's salute, and watched the pair as they passed on in the direction of Marble Arch.
Suddenly the girl stopped and turned. For a moment Elton stood irresolute, then he also turned and they both walked in Patricia's direction.
"Lady Peggy insisted that we should break in upon your solitude," said Elton, having introduced the two girls.
"You will forgive me, won't you?" said Lady Peggy, "but I so wanted to know you. You see Peter has the reputation of being invulnerable. We're all quite breathless from our fruitless endeavours to entangle him, and I wanted to see what you were like."
"I'm afraid you'll find I'm quite common-place," said Patricia, smiling. It was impossible to be annoyed with Lady Peggy. Her frankness was disarming, and her curiosity that of a child.
"I always say," bubbled Lady Peggy, "that there are only two men in London worth marrying, and they neither of them will have me, although I've worked most terribly hard."
"Who are they?" enquired Patricia.
"Oh! Goddy's one," she said, indicating Elton with a nod, "and Peter's the other. They are both prepared to be brothers to me; but they're not sufficiently generous to save me from dying an old maid."