Reaction had left her almost calm. The trepidation of a few moments back had vanished; and she advanced now in a brisk and business-like way. She found the door and opened it. There was more darkness beyond, but an uncurtained window gave sufficient light for her to see that she was in a sitting-room. Across one corner of this room lay a high-backed chesterfield. In another corner stood a pedestal desk. And about the soft carpet there were distributed easy chairs in any one of which Mrs. Waddington, had the conditions been different, would have been delighted to sit and rest.
But, though she had been on her feet some considerable time now and was not a woman who enjoyed standing, prudence warned her that the temptation to relax must be resisted. It was a moment for action, not repose. She turned to the door which presumably led into the front hall and thence to the stairs and safety: and had just opened it when there came the click of a turning key.
Mrs. Waddington acted swiftly. The strange calm which had been upon her dissolved into a panic fear. She darted back into the sitting-room: and, taking the chesterfield in an inspired bound, sank down behind it and tried not to snort.
"Been waiting long?" asked some person unseen, switching on the light and addressing an invisible companion.
The voice was strange to Mrs. Waddington: but about the one that replied to it there was something so fruitily familiar that she stiffened where she lay, scarcely able to credit her senses. For it was the voice of Ferris, her butler. And Ferris, if the truth was in him, should by now have been at the sick-bed of a relative.
"Some little time, sir, but it has caused me no inconvenience."
"What did you want to see me about?"
"I am addressing Mr. Lancelot Biffen, the editor-in-chief of 'Town Gossip'?"
"Yes. Talk quick. I've got to go out again in a minute."
"I understand, Mr. Biffen, that 'Town Gossip' is glad to receive and pay a substantial remuneration for items of interest concerning those prominent in New York Society. I have such an item."