The greeting was soon over. After she herself had said the appropriate things, Lady Tranmore had time to notice that Mary Lyster, whose turn came next, did not attempt to say them. She looked, indeed, unusually handsome and animated; Lady Tranmore was certain that Cliffe had noticed as much, at his first sight of her. But the remarks she omitted showed how minute and recent was their knowledge of each other's movements. Cliffe himself gave a first impression of high spirits. He declared that London was more agreeable than he had ever known it, and that after his three years' absence nobody looked a day older. Then he inquired after Ashe.
Lady Tranmore replied that William was well, but hard-worked; she hoped to persuade him to get a few days abroad at Whitsuntide. Her manner was quiet, without a trace of either discourtesy or effusion. Cliffe began to twist his mustache, a sign she knew well. It meant that he was in truth both irritable and nervous.
"You think they'll last till Whitsuntide?"
"The government?" she said, smiling. "Certainly—and beyond."
"I give them three weeks," said Cliffe, twisting anew, with a vigor that gave her a positive physical sympathy with the tortured mustache. "There will be some papers out to-morrow that will be a bomb-shell."
"About America? Oh, they have been blown up so often! You, for instance, have been doing your best—for months."
His perfunctory laugh answered the mockery of her charming eyes.
"Well—I wish I could make William hear reason."
Lady Tranmore held herself stiffly. The Christian name seemed to her an offence. It was true that in old days he and Cliffe had been on those terms. Now—it was a piece of bad taste.
"Probably what is reason to you is folly to him," she said, dryly.