“This is an unexpected pleasure, Lady Dyke. Can I be of any service?”
She bit her lip, not unobserved, but the law of Society forced her features into a bright smile.
“Oh, Mr. Bruce, is it you? I am going to see my sister at Richmond. Isn’t the weather horrid? I shall be so glad if you will put me into the right train.”
Mr. Claude Bruce, barrister and man about town, whose clean-cut features and dark, deep-set eyes made him as readily recognizable, knew that she would have been much better pleased had he passed without greeting. Like the footman, he wondered why she did not drive in her carriage rather than travel by the Underground Railway on such a night. He guessed that she was perturbed—that her voluble explanation was a disguise.
He reflected that he could ill afford any delay in dressing for a distant dinner—that good manners oft entail inconvenience—but of course he said:
“Delighted. Have you any wraps?”
“No, I am just going for a chat, and shall be home early.”
He bought her a first-class ticket, noting as an odd coincidence that it bore the number of the year, 1903, descended to the barrier, found that the next train for Richmond passed through in ten minutes, fumed inwardly for an instant, explained his presence to the ticket-collector, and paced the platform with his companion.
Having condemned the fog, and the last play, and the latest book, they were momentarily silent.
The newspaper placards on Smith & Son’s bookstall announced that a “Great Society Scandal” was on the tapis. “The Duke in the Box” formed a telling line, and the eyes of both people chanced on it simultaneously.