Sally followed, nervously sullen of bearing toward all save her employer.
Mr. Walter Arden Savage came next, but at a respectable distance, a very hang-dog Harlequin indeed, a cigarette drooping disconsolately from the corner of his mouth.
At the door he stood aside to give precedence to his sister, no longer Columbine, but a profoundly distressed and apprehensive blonde person in a particularly fetching negligee.
Miss Pride alone wore her accustomed mien--of sprightly spinsterhood--unruffled.
Mr. Lyttleton was almost too much at ease; Mr. Mason was exceedingly dubious; Mr. Trego was, for him, almost abnormally grave.
This last, bringing up the rear of the procession, closed the hall door at a sign from Mrs. Gosnold. The company found seats conspicuously apart, with the exception of Mrs. Standish and Savage, likewise Mercedes, who stuck to her dear Abigail as per invariable custom. Sally, on her part, found an aloof corner where she could observe without being conspicuous.
"So," said Mrs. Gosnold, taking her place beside the desk and raking the gathering with a forbidding eye. "Now if you will all be good enough to humour me without interruption, I have some announcements to make, some news to impart, and perhaps a question or two to ask. It's late, and I'm tired and short of temper, so you needn't be afraid I won't make the proceedings as brief as possible. But there are certain matters that must be settled before we go to bed to-night."
She managed a dramatic pause very effectively, and then: "I've been kidnapped," she announced.
Murmurs of astonishment rewarding her, she smiled grimly.
"Kidnapped," she iterated with a sort of ferocious relish. "At my age, too. I don't wonder you're surprised. I was. So were my kidnappers, when they found out who they were making off with. For, of course, it was a mistake. They were conventional kidnappers, with not. an ounce of originality to bless themselves with, so naturally they had meant to kidnap a good-looking youngster--Miss Manwaring, in fact."