On reaching there, Mrs. Hale changed her mind with characteristic suddenness.
“I’ll run down to the club and pick up your father,” she said as she hopped back into the limousine. “I remember now that he left word we were to call for him. Won’t you come, Judith?”
Judith, halfway up the steps leading to the front door, shook her head.
“No thanks, Mother, I have several letters to write,” and with a wave of her hand she hurried inside the house. Maud, who had waited in some uncertainty until she saw the limousine drive off with Mrs. Hale seated in it, closed the front door.
“Can I do anything for you, Mrs. Richards?” she asked, as Judith paused to look at several notes lying on the hall table. None was addressed to her and she laid them back again.
“No, Maud, not a thing,” she replied. “Has Major Richards returned?”
“Not yet, ma’am.” Maud, catching a furtive look at herself in the long mirror on the wall, rearranged her cap to a more becoming angle. “Is it too early to take your pitcher of ice water to your boudoir, ma’am? Anna said you had one generally.”
“It is not too early.” Judith turned toward the circular staircase. “How is Anna?”
“Much better, ma’am; she practiced walking around after dinner and got on first rate,”—Maud lingered a moment—“not but what I warned her to be careful; ’tain’t any use of taking chances with a banged-up ankle.”
“True,” agreed Judith absently, and, unloosening her coat, she went upstairs. Instead of going at once to her boudoir she hurried down the hall to her father’s den, and as she entered it Polly Davis looked up from the manuscript she was copying and stopped her machine.