CHAPTER XV
ANNE AND SARA SEEK ADVENTURE
"Anne," said Mrs. Wellington, as she came in from her drive a few minutes later, "your chauffeur drives too fast. The car passed me, cutting through Brenton Road a while ago, at a perfectly insane pace. Some one—how do you do, Sara, I 'm delighted to have you with us—was in the tonneau, whom I took to be Koltsoff, although there was such a blur I was n't certain. Was it he?"
"Yes, mother," Anne glanced at Sara. "Isn't it maddening! Some urgent summons, he said, made it necessary for him to go; and he may be away all night. Of course that punctured the party at Freebody."
"It is maddening," Sara hastened to observe.
Mrs. Wellington compressed her lips.
"I had told him your father would arrive this evening. But of course he must have failed to remember that. Fortunately, he will not come on from New York until to-morrow—I 've had a wire. Have you any idea the Prince will be with us to-morrow? Sir Arthur Baddeley will be down from Bar Harbor for the week; Bob Marie is coming with your father, and two or three of the Tuxedo crowd, Sallie and Blanche Turnure and Willie Whipple will be here by Wednesday for the ball, certainly."
"I don't know, really," said Anne, "but I imagine so, of course."
Sara gazed at Mrs. Wellington curiously. It was true the woman was outwardly unperturbed, characteristically so, but Sara had never before been able to read in that mask-like face so many indications of inward irritation. Anne's sly glance told her that she, too, had been able to enjoy a rare opportunity of penetrating beneath the surface.
Mrs. Wellington toyed with her lorgnette for a moment.