Falconer was looking very severe and impassive; he shook hands with Mrs. Halse, and then turned perforce to Mrs. Romayne, taking her hand with an almost solemn gravity, which contrasted sharply with the careless gaiety with which she extended it.
“I didn’t expect to see you this afternoon,” she said lightly. “Stupid of me, though; every one comes to the Stormont-Eades’.”
“I did not expect to meet you,” he answered sternly. “I have called at Queen Anne Street.”
He had been astounded at not finding her at home. He was distinctly of opinion that afternoon teas were not for a woman who should be sitting in sackcloth and ashes, and the sight of her had shocked not only his sense of propriety, but some deeper sense of the reality of the crisis at which he was assisting. Perhaps Mrs. Romayne understood that her presence at the “little tea-party” scandalised him, for there was a strange, bitter smile on her lips before she turned to Mrs. Halse, and said, with a rather hard, strained ring in her gay voice:
“You’ll get no support from my cousin, I assure you, Mrs. Halse. He was a most praiseworthy——”
Her voice was drowned in a ringing chord on the piano, and as the prelude to a song filled the room, she made a mocking gesture expressive of the impossibility of making herself heard; and turning her face towards the singer, as she stood by Falconer’s side, she composed herself to listen. Her face grew rather set and fixed in its lines of animated attention as the song went on, and when it ceased, her comments were of the indefinitely delighted order. She made them very easily and brightly, however, and then she turned carelessly to Falconer.
“Are you thinking of staying long?” she said lightly. “I rather want to talk to you, do you know—this unfortunate man is my man of business, you must know, Mrs. Halse—and I thought perhaps that I could drive you somewhere.”
“I shall be happy to go whenever you like,” was the grave answer.
Mrs. Romayne laughed lightly.
“Oh, I don’t want to take you away immediately!” she said. “You’ve only just come, I’m afraid. In a little while!”