“Well, I think we have discussed everything we had to settle,” said Mrs Harrowby, getting up again from the chair beside Lady Marth, which she had momentarily occupied. “I must say a word or two to Miss— Oh, here he is, Lady Marth—here is Mr Dunstan.”
Chapter Eleven.
Ruffled Plumage.
“Yes, here I am,” said the young man, as he entered the room and hastened up to Mrs Harrowby, no one suspecting that in his rapid transit he had managed to take in the fact of certain individuals’ presence. “Yes, here I am; and I should apologise, I know, but it is all Lady Marth’s fault. She dragged me here, and then left me in the lurch with the ponies at the door, quite forgetting I was not the groom. And then, no doubt, she has been wondering ‘what in the world has become of that Archie.’”
The few within hearing could not help laughing, he reproduced so cleverly Lady Marth’s coldly languid tones.
She laughed herself, and her laugh was a pleasant one.
“You are very impertinent,” she said. “And as for dragging you here—you know you were dying for an excuse to get in to see what one of Hebe’s meetings was like. He reminded me of the legendary female who exists in so many families, you know, whose husband was a Freemason, and she hid herself to overhear their secrets,” she went on, to Miss Milward, who happened to be nearest her, Mrs Harrowby by this time having crossed the room to Florry Wandle and her cousin.
“Well, my curiosity has not been rewarded—nor punished,” said Mr Dunstan.