The planting of Miss Ransome’s siege-train could not be at once taken in hand, as a rapid gallop of the eye over the unknown persons that the room contained showed that not one of them answered to the description which she had extracted from Mr. Tancred, with many precautions in the manner of doing it, of Toby. She made out a mother at once, and an elder sister, and an elder sister’s friend, though at first not quite sure which was which of the two latter, and a couple of elderly men.
As the electric light was not turned on, and the oaky gloom of the room was lit by only a fire that, though generous, was unequal in its distribution of light, Miss Ransome did not immediately realize the additional presence of a large female figure in outdoor dress, pelotonnée in an armchair in a corner. The sight of a motor-car at the hall door had shown that there must be other callers besides themselves, but the girl had forgotten the unimportant fact. It was brought back to her with a jump.
She was halfway through her presentation to the family, executed in her very nicest jeune fille manner, when officious servants, turning buttons, flooded the room with light and set her staringly face to face with her past. It stood opposite to her in the shape of the large dim figure—alas! no longer dim, but revealed in bounteous outline, pigeon-egg pearls, ruddled hair and sable toque, which at the sound of her name precipitated itself out of its chair to look at her.
“Bonnybell Ransome! Is it possible that it is Bonnybell Ransome—poor Cl—oh, of course!”—recalled by the chic woe of the daughter’s hat to the fact of the extinction of that former acquaintance, of whose name nobody, apparently, not even Lady Tennington, dared now pronounce more than the two first letters.
For a moment—since this was a contingency which the most foreseeing could not have guarded against—Bonnybell stood mute and aghast. Was there ever such a stroke of ill luck? Flora Tennington, who knew all about everything! Flora Tennington, so intimately associated with poor Claire’s disastrous career—with all but the last year, that is! That last year had choked even Flora Tennington off! She had held on as long as she could—one must say that for her—and she had tried, yes, tried hard to stem the flood of those dreadful champagnes and brandies and chlorals. Her failure had been the occasion of the final rupture, and then she, too, had disappeared. She was not a bad friend, to do her justice. She had gone on speaking to the unnamable Sir Algy long after he had sunk quite out of social sight; but, all the same, what extraordinary ill luck that she should have reappeared in these surroundings! She had always had the character of being bonne enfant, but she would be more than human if she resisted the temptation to tell all she knew—and all was such a very great deal, even without that last year—of poor Claire! And if she did, what, pray, would become of Toby?
It did not take more than five seconds for this chain of actual and possible misfortune to dart through Bonnybell’s brain, nor for her to recover her presence of mind.
“What a delightful surprise!” she said with a sweet blush of pleasure, holding out a glad little black hand.
The rejoinder was not what might have been expected.
“Do not put out your hand,” cried Lady Tennington, precipitately; “she’ll fly at you if you do. Lisa never allows any one to touch me.” If this were true, Lisa must in past years, if report lied not, have had her paws full.
A low growl, a glimpse of age-whitened muzzle, and a struggling chestnut-coloured body revealed the presence, under her mistress’s arm, of a small dachshund. Here was another voice from the past.