The headwaiter bowed profoundly and with elaborate circumstance led her to a retired spot behind a cluster of palms, where covers had been laid for two. A low bowl of purple orchids graced the center of her table, but she noted that all those nearby were decorated only with daffodils in tall vases. Were the flowers meant for a sign by which her own identity was to have been disclosed to the mysterious other woman?
The waiter hovered obsequiously about and Betty ordered tea to be rid, for the moment at least, of his unwelcome attention. Her eyes mechanically swept the moving kaleidoscope of faces about her, but all seemed too preoccupied to give a passing glance to the solitary figure half-hidden behind the towering palms.
The tea, long since placed before her, grew cold untasted; the tintinabulation of the orchestra ceased, then after an interval recommenced, and still Betty sat alone. The hands she clenched beneath the tablecloth were icy, but her cheeks burned and her heart pounded suffocatingly.
How long must she wait? She had not been told the hour of this strange appointment, but Mrs. Atterbury had remarked that morning that the errand might keep her out until late. The incident of the girl with the valley lilies kept recurring to her thoughts, and as the minutes lengthened into a half-hour she felt an all but overmastering impulse to spring up and run from the chattering, inconsequent throng to the seclusion of the waiting car, even if it meant facing the unleashed fury of her employer.
All at once she became conscious that a young man had appeared beside her; a strange young man, with a clean-cut face and square shoulders beneath an irreproachably fitting coat. Betty's swift glance encompassed his general appearance, but her eyes fixed themselves upon his lapel where nodded a single orchid of a livid purple hue.
The young man bowed stiffly and without waiting for an invitation, pulled out the opposite chair and seated himself.
"So sorry to have been late, but I was unavoidably detained," he began in a loud, forced voice. Then bending swiftly across to her he added in a rapid undertone: "The lady could not come, but I am here in her place. Put your muff on the table and I will slip the packet into it."
Betty eyed him steadily.
"You have made some mistake." She spoke in a low voice with quiet distinctness. "I do not know you."
"Good heavens, don't make a scene! It is all right, I tell you! Can't you understand? The lady was unable to come in person but she sent me to deliver it to you. Look! Don't you recognize this?" He spoke with half-savage insistence and the girl noticed that beads of perspiration had started upon his brow. He touched the flower in his buttonhole, then pointed to the others in the bowl between them, but she gave no sign of comprehension.