"Of course, dear, since you ..."
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye, dear. If Biddy Bawne hadn't been a nun," reflected Lady Hannah, as she went out of the Matron's office and back to her patients, who had long ago dined, "I think she would have made rather a despotic Empress. 'Refer him to me,' indeed. What is it, Sergeant? Don't say I'm rung up again."
But the one-armed porter was positive on the subject, and her little ladyship went back. This last communication proved a puzzling one.
"You there?"
"I am Lady Hannah Wrynche. Where are you?"
There was a brief hesitation. A thickish man's voice said:
"I don't know as that matters."
"Who are you?"
There was another hesitation. Then the stranger parried with a question: