"Perhaps Mr. Merridew asked him to."
"Oh no. He only got the wire this morning. But it isn't a surprise. Jeff saw him last night——" She checked herself. She had no gibes about brown-paper parcels now.
"Well, you'll be quite a courting quartet," said Louie presently, with a brightness she did not feel.
"Yes; jolly, isn't it? But there, I'm simply not going to talk about myself one moment longer. I feel a regular beast. But it's only because I'm so happy. Now let's talk about you. How long are you going to be here? What sort of people are they? Isn't it fearfully expensive? Are you frightened?"
The suppressed inquisitive questions and Louie's preoccupied parries lasted through tea. At a quarter to five Kitty rose. Again Louie found herself wondering whether Kitty would see her Mr. Jeffries that day. Kitty bent over her.
"I should like to kiss you, dear, if you'd let me," she said timidly. "You wouldn't believe what a difference it makes. And I'd love to come again; I love little babies. Now I must run. I won't say a word to Miriam Levey; you know what she is—but I simply must learn not to say those things. Good-bye, dear."
And she was off, waving her skimpy hand from the door.
Louie did not know why her heart should ache already, as at a premonition—for she had no certitude. Indeed, in all that portion of her relation to Mr. Jeffries she had no certitude; but she was only a little less certain on that account. Already she entirely rejected the figment in which Kitty so pathetically believed. Months before she had snapped her fingers at his impudent tale of a shadowy fiancée; now she wondered whether he had not been caught in his own trap and found himself compelled, by mere daily exigencies, to give that shadow substance—the substance of Kitty. Impossible—and yet the conceivable alternatives were equally impossible! Incredible that he should have chosen Kitty for his stalking-horse—yet whom else had there been to choose? If this really was a putting-upon the Business School, Mr. Jeffries would see to it that his dupe was as known as his purpose was secret. That left him three candidates from whom to choose indifferently—Kitty, Miriam Levey, and herself.
In her indignation she was unconscious of the pink that crept like a danger signal into her cheeks.
That poor, unconscious, betrayed woman!