“Where’s Leila?” asked Shepherd as dinner was announced and they moved toward the dining-room.
“She’ll be along presently,” Mills replied easily.
“Dear Leila!” exclaimed Constance. “You never disciplined her as you did Shep. Shep would go to the stake before he’d turn up late.”
“Leila,” said Mills a little defensively, “is a law unto herself.”
“That’s why we all love the dear child!” said Constance quickly. “Not for worlds would I change her.”
To nothing was Mills so sensitive as to criticism of Leila, a fact which she should have remembered.
As they took their places Mills asked her, in the impersonal tone she hated, what the prospects were for a gay winter. She was on the committee of the Assembly, whose entertainments were a noteworthy feature of every season. There, too, was the Dramatic Club, equally exclusive in its membership, and Constance was on the play committee. Mills listened with interest, or with the pretense of interest, as she gave him the benefit of her knowledge as to the winter’s social programme.
They were half through the dinner when Leila arrived. With a cheerful “Hello, everybody,” she flung off her wrap and without removing her hat, sank into the chair Shepherd drew out for her.
“Sorry, Dada, but Millie and I played eighteen holes this afternoon; got a late start and were perfectly starved when we finished and just had to have tea. And some people came along and we got to talking and it was dark before we knew it.”
“How’s your game coming on?” her father asked.