Isobel leaned forward, and still with that faint, delightful smile she pricked the back of Sir Julian’s hand sharply with the point of her embroidery needle.
“The serpent’s tooth!” he said, and opened his book. “Isobel, you interrupt my studies. I merely wish to commend three aspects of the case to your feminine intuition. First—Henry is in love; second—he has yet to reckon with his mamma; third—I may at any time ring you up and instruct you to prepare the guest chamber for Henry’s girl.”
Lady Le Mesurier began to work a blue ribbon bow round the stalks of some pink and white daisies.
“You’re rather a lamb, Piggy,” she said.
CHAPTER XII
It was next morning, whilst Jane was sorting and arranging the papers for the library table, that she caught sight of Henry’s first message. She very nearly missed it, for the fold of the paper cut right across the agony column, and what caught her eye was the one word that passed as a signature, “Thursday.” It startled her so much that she dropped the paper, and, in snatching at it, knocked over a pile of magazines.
Lady Heritage looked over her shoulder with a frown, tapped with her foot, and then went on with her writing in a silence that uttered more reproof than words could have done.
Jane picked everything up as silently as possible. As she put the papers on the table, she laid The Times out flat, and, bending over it, read the message:
“You will receive a letter from me. Trust the bearer. Thursday.”
She put all the papers neatly in their places, and went to her writing-table with an intense longing to be alone, to be able to think what this might mean, and to wonder who—who would be the bearer of Henry’s letter. She hoped ardently that Lady Heritage would have business in the laboratories, and whilst these thoughts, and hopes, and wonderings filled her mind, she had to write neat and legible replies to the apparently inexhaustible number of persons who desired Lady Heritage to open bazaars, speak at public meetings, subscribe to an indefinite number of charities, or contribute to the writer’s support.