Cicely dissembled. She had looked forward to buying the furniture of her London house, but she distrusted her taste. Probably, left to her own devices, she would achieve the commonplace.
“What do you say, Cis?” asked Wilverley.
“If the things are really good . . .”
“They are, they are. We should save time, money, and worry. I told the agent that I’d wire him.”
“Talk it over together,” advised Lady Selina. She added gravely: “I commend any saving of time and worry to you, Arthur, because I am constrained, much to my distress, to ask you to spend time and worry on me. But we will talk of that later.”
With that she smiled graciously, and sailed out of the room.
“What does your mother mean?” asked Wilverley.
“She will tell you, Arthur, after dinner.”
He displayed a tinge, nothing more, of irritability.
“Mystery . . .!”