"Does Colonel Maddison dine here, my dear Mrs. Mellish?" she asked meekly; yet with a pensive earnestness which suggested that her life, or at any rate her peace of mind, depended upon the answer. "I am so anxious to know, for of course it will make a difference with the fish,—and perhaps we ought to have some mulligatawny; or at any rate a dish of curry amongst the entrées; for these elderly East-Indian officers are so——"
"I don't know," answered Aurora, curtly. "Were you standing at the door long before I came out, Mrs. Powell?"
"Oh, no," answered the ensign's widow, "not long. Did you not hear me knock?"
Mrs. Powell would not have allowed herself to be betrayed into anything so vulgar as an abbreviation by the torments of the rack; and would have neatly rounded her periods while the awful wheel was stretching every muscle of her agonized frame, and the executioner waiting to give the coup de grâce.
"Did you not hear me knock?" she asked.
"No," said Aurora; "you didn't knock! Did you?"
Mrs. Mellish made an alarming pause between the two sentences.
"Oh, yes, too-wice," answered Mrs. Powell, with as much emphasis as was consistent with gentility upon the elongated word; "I knocked too-wice; but you seemed so very much preoccupied that——"
"I didn't hear you," interrupted Aurora; "you should knock rather louder when you want people to hear, Mrs. Powell. I—I came here to look for John, and I shall stop and put away his guns. Careless fellow!—he always leaves them lying about."
"Shall I assist you, dear Mrs. Mellish?"