"I wonder what he'll think of Arthur's speech—and whether he's seen Coryston. I wonder whether he knows there's going to be an awful row to-night. Coryston's mad!"
Coryston was her eldest brother, and she was very fond of him. But the way he had been behaving!—the way he had been defying mamma!—it was really ridiculous. What could he expect?
She seemed to be talking to the distant face, defending her mother and herself with a kind of unwilling deference.
"After all, do I really care what he thinks?"
She turned and went her way to the tearoom. As she entered it she saw some acquaintances at the farther end, who waved their hands to her, beckoning her to join them. She hastened across the room, much observed by the way, and conscious of the eyes upon her. It was a relief to find herself among a group of chattering people.
Meanwhile at the other end of the room three ladies were finishing their tea. Two of them were the wives of Liberal Ministers—by name, Mrs. Verity and Mrs. Frant. The third was already a well-known figure in London society and in the precincts of the House of Commons—the Ladies' Gallery, the Terrace, the dining-rooms—though she was but an unmarried girl of two-and-twenty. Quite apart, however, from her own qualities and claims, Enid Glenwilliam was conspicuous as the only daughter of the most vigorously hated and ardently followed man of the moment—the North Country miner's agent, who was now England's Finance Minister.
"You saw who that young lady was?" said Mrs. Frant to Miss Glenwilliam. "I thought you knew her."
"Marcia Coryston? I have just been introduced to her. But she isn't allowed to know me!" The laugh that accompanied the words had a pleasant childish chuckle in it.
Mrs. Frant laughed also.
"Girls, I suppose, have to do what they're told," she said, dryly. "But it was Arthur Coryston, wasn't it, who sent you that extra order for to-day, Enid?"