She found Granton, a picture of prim disapproval, waiting with her dress spread out on the bed. Marcia dropped into a wicker chair with a tired sigh.
‘You’ve ridden a long way,’ Granton remarked as she removed a muddy boot.
‘Yes, Granton, I have; and dinner’s already been waiting half an hour, and Pietro looks like a thunder-cloud, and Mrs. Copley looks worried, and the guests look hungry—what François looks like I don’t dare to think. We must fly; our reputations depend on it.’
‘Am I ready?’ she inquired, not much more than fifteen minutes later, as she twisted her head to view the effect in the mirror.
‘You’ll do very well,’ said Granton.
‘I’m terribly tired,’ she sighed; ‘and I feel more like going to bed than facing guests—but I suppose, in the natural order of events, dinner must be accomplished first.’
‘To be sure,’ said the maid, critically adjusting her train.
‘Your philosophy is so comfortable, Granton! As we have done yesterday, so shall we do to-day and also to-morrow. It saves one the trouble of making up one’s mind.’
She reached the salon just in time to take Paul Dessart’s silently offered arm to the dining-room. Sybert did not appear until the soup was being removed. He possessed himself of the empty chair beside Eleanor Royston, with a murmured apology to his hostess.
‘It’s excusable, Sybert,’ said Copley, with a frown. ‘You should not allow a woman to beat you.’