The living arrangements of the Kenbys were somewhat more exclusive than those to which the ordinary residents of boarding-houses are subject. Father and daughter had their meals served in their own principal room, the one with the large fireplace, the piano, the big red easy chairs, and the great window looking across the back gardens to the Gothic church. The small bedchamber opening off this apartment was used by Mr. Kenby. Florence slept in a rear room on the floor above.
The dinner of three was scarcely over, on this blizzardy evening, when Mr. Kenby betook himself up-stairs for his whist, to which, he had confided to the girls, there was promise of additional attraction in the shape of claret punch, and sundry pleasing indigestibles to be sent in from a restaurant at eleven o'clock.
“So if Mr. Turl comes at half-past eight, we shall have at least three hours,” said Edna, when Florence and she were alone together.
“How excited you are, dear!” was the reply. “You're almost shaking.”
“No, I'm not—it's from the cold.”
“Why, I don't think it's cold here.”
“It's from looking at the cold, I mean. Doesn't it make you shiver to see the snow flying around out there in the night? Ugh!” She gazed out at the whirl of flakes illumined by the electric lights in the street between the furthest garden and the church. They flung themselves around the pinnacles, to build higher the white load on the steep roof. Nearer, the gardens and trees, the tops of walls and fences, the verandas and shutters, were covered thick with snow, the mass of which was ever augmented by the myriad rushing particles.
Edna turned from this scene to the fire, before which Florence was already seated. The sound of an electric door-bell came from the hall.
“It's Tom,” cried Edna. “Good boy!—ahead of time.” But the negro man servant announced Mr. Bagley.
A look of displeasure marked Florence's answer. “Tell him my father is not here—is spending the evening with Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence.”