Alice waited, a little at a loss. To her this had no particular significance.
"She had her niece with her, young girl about eighteen," Christopher said.
"Well—what of it?" Alice demanded, with a sort of superb indifference to anything such a woman might do.
He looked at her through his round eyeglasses, with the slight frown that many of life's problems brought to his handsome face. Then the glass fell, on its black ribbon, and he laughed.
"That's just what I don't get," he said, good-humouredly. "But I'll tell you exactly what occurred. What's-His-Name, your mother's butler——"
"Joseph."
"Joseph. Joseph told me that at about four o'clock this Mrs. Sheridan came in. Your mother had told him that she was expecting the lady, and that he was to bring her upstairs. With her came this girl—I can't remember her name—but it was something Sheridan—Nora Sheridan, maybe. Leslie carried the girl off for tea, and the woman stayed with your mother.
"Well, at five—or later, this Mrs. Sheridan ran into the hall, and it seems—she's all right now!—it seems that your mother had fainted."
"Mama!" Alice said, anxiously, with an incredulous frown.
"Yes, but don't worry. She's absolutely all right now. Leslie," Christopher went back to his narrative, "Leslie cried, and I suppose there was a scene. Mrs. Sheridan and the girl went home—Leslie dressed and went out—and your mother immediately telephoned Lee——"