As the crow flies, it is just nine minutes from Broad Place to Bridport House. Therefore they had time to burn. And as it was such a perfect day for motoring, it was a day equally well adapted for sitting under the trees in the Park.
Force majeure was applied so vigorously by Mrs. Wren, with timely aid from the Tenderfoot, that Mary was not given half a chance to jib at this new and amazing turn of fortune’s shuttle. She must wear her new hat with the roses—Mrs. Wren. She must wear Raquin’s biscuit-colored masterpiece—Mr. Dinneford. Her diamond earrings thought Mrs. Wren. Mr. Dinneford thought her old-fashioned seed pearl. There was never really any question of her going to luncheon at Bridport House at 1.30. Her friends and counselors did not even allow it to arise. The only thing that need trouble her was how she looked when she got there.
En route she made a picture of immense distinction beyond a doubt. Whether it was the hat with the roses, or the sunshine of July, or the dress of simple muslin, which on second thoughts seemed more in keeping with the occasion than the Raquin masterpiece, and in the opinion of Mrs. Wren had the further merit “that it gave her eyes a chance,” or her favorite earrings which Aunt Harriet had given her as a little girl; or the fact that Jack walked beside her, and that Happiness is still the greatest of Court painters, who shall say?—but in the course of a pilgrimage from Albert Gate to the Marble Arch and half way back again, she certainly attracted more than her share of the public notice. In fact, with her fine height and her lithe grace she actually provoked a hook-nosed, hard-featured dame in a sort of high-hung barouche to turn in the most deliberate manner and look at her. Or it may have been because the Tenderfoot in passing had raised a reluctant, semi-ironical hat.
“Aunt Charlotte,” said he.
“I hope Aunt Charlotte is not as disagreeable as she looks,” was Mary’s thought, but doubtless remembering in the nick of time Talleyrand’s famous maxim, she merely said, “What a clever face!”
“Is it?” said Jack, unconcernedly. But his mind was on other things, perhaps.
As a matter of fact, it was on other things.
“Let’s sit here five minutes,” he said, as they came to a couple of vacant chairs. “Then I’ll tell you a bit of news.”
They sat accordingly. And the bit of news was the following:
“Muriel’s hooked it.”