With that she crossed the hall, turned the handle of the parlor door and entered.
A blaze of light greeted her and made her pause in surprise. The big chandeliers in the double parlors were both lighted and Mrs. Barry was entertaining a guest.
She rose with suave dignity.
“Cecil, this is my niece, Louise—Miss Barry, Mr. Laurens.”
Taken by surprise, Molly made a bashful constrained little courtesy without looking up, but as she was about to sink into a seat by her aunt a manly hand grasped hers and a familiar voice said kindly:
“I am glad to meet you, Miss Barry. I hope we shall be as good friends as the Barrys and Laurens have been before us!”
Molly looked at him with dilated eyes. It was the stranger she had met a few nights before!
Her lips parted and closed again without a sound. In pitiable agitation she dropped into a large arm-chair behind Mrs. Barry, telling herself that he had betrayed the whole escapade, and that now the old lady’s wrath would be poured out upon her head in fullest measure. She waited in sheer desperation for the blow to fall on her pretty luckless head.
Not a word was addressed to her by either her aunt or the visitor. Mrs. Barry took up the thread of a momentarily dropped discourse about London. They discussed that famous city at some length while the culprit trembled in her chair.
Then Mrs. Barry’s gray silk rustled as she rose from her sofa.