He was in town she knew. He was in town because she was in town, and because the House was sitting. Where should she see him?
To send for him to her residence might cause some story to get about; to go to Harrenden House was still more compromising unless she began by a visit to his wife, which would be round about and cause delay; she knew he might very possibly be at the Commons—new members are always very assiduous in their attendance—and he was at that time serving on a Royal Commission on some agricultural difficulty. She had herself dressed, feeling that Cecile looked curiously at her, and telling the woman to take the dogs in Kensington Gardens, she went to her carriage which had been waiting two hours.
“To Palace Yard!” she said to her footman: the horses, irritated in temper and with their mouths and necks in pain from their long penance in their bearing-reins, flew thither with the speed of the wind.
She sent for Mr. Massarene, who was, the doorkeeper said, in the House. After a few moments he came out to her with the deferential haste of an enamored man, which sat ill on his broad squat figure and his iron-grey, elderly, respectable, tradesmanlike aspect.
“I want to speak to you a moment,” she said as he came and stood by the carriage. “Can you give me a cup of tea on the terrace?”
“Certainly, certainly!” he stammered, confused by a dual sentiment—the charm of her presence and the fear that it would look odd to be seen with her. “The committee I am on has just ended its sitting,” he added with the pride which he felt in his functions. “I shall be delighted if I can be of any use.”
“There is no one there now, is there?” she asked, sensible as he was that her appearance in such a public place would look very strange.
“No one, or next to no one. No one of your friends, certainly. A few Radical members.”
“They don’t matter,” she said, and went with him through the House to the terrace.
He gave her a seat and ordered tea. He was dazzled and intimidated as he always was by her presence, but he was conscious that her beguilements always ended in some advantage for herself, so that he was less flattered than he would otherwise have been by her sudden appeal to him.