"Mr. Singleton? Oh! This is Alice speaking——"
I clutched the shelf for support. Not only was it Alice speaking, but in the kindest voice imaginable. My anger passed, but my amazement at Alice and all her ways blinded me. If she had suddenly stepped through the wall, my surprise could not have been greater.
"You told me the Thackeray was your usual refuge in town, so I thought I'd try it. Are you very, very cross? I'm sorry, really I am—Bob!"
The "Bob" was added lingeringly, propitiatingly. Huddled in the booth, I doubted my senses—wondering indeed whether Alice hadn't a double—even whether I hadn't dreamed everything that had occurred at Barton.
"I wanted to speak to you ever so much at the theatre, but I couldn't very well without introducing you to Sir Cecil, and I wasn't ready to do that. It might have caused complications."
If anything could have multiplied the existing complications, I was anxious to know what they were; but her voice was so gentle, so wholly amiable, that I restrained an impulse to demand explanations.
"Are you on earth or are you speaking from paradise?" I asked.
"Oh, we're in a very nice house, Constance and I; and we're just about having a little supper. I wish you were here, but that can't be arranged. No; really it can't! We shall be motoring back to Barton to-morrow and hope you can join us. Let us have luncheon and motor up together."
When I suggested that I call for them she laughed gayly.
"That would be telling things! And we mustn't spoil everything when everything is going so beautifully."