‘Goodbye!’ said Mrs. Innes at the door. ‘No, I can’t possibly let you come in to tea. I don’t know how you have the conscience after drinking three cups at Mrs. Mickie’s, where I had no business to take you! Tomorrow? Oh, all right if you want to VERY badly. But I won’t promise you strawberries—they’re nearly all gone.’
There was the sound of a departing pony’s trot, and Mrs. Innes came into the drawing-room.
‘Good heavens, Horace! what are you sitting there for like a—like a ghost? Why didn’t you make a noise or something, and why aren’t you at office? I can’t tell you how you startled me.’
‘It is early,’ Colonel Innes said. ‘We are neither of us in the house, as a rule, at this hour.’
‘Coincidence!’ Violet turned a cool, searching glance on her husband, and held herself ready. ‘I came home early because I want to alter the lace on my yellow bodice for tonight. It’s too disgusting as it is. But I was rather glad to get away from Mrs. Mickie’s lot. So rowdy!’
‘And I came because I had a special reason for wanting to speak to you.’
Mrs. Violet’s lips parted, and her breath, in spite of herself, came a little faster.
‘As we are dining out tonight, I thought that if I didn’t catch you now I might not have another opportunity—till tomorrow morning.’
‘And it’s always a pity to spoil one’s breakfast. I can tell from your manner, mon ami, it’s something disagreeable. What have I been and gone and done?’
She was dancing, poor thing, in her little vulgar way, on hot iron. But her eyes kept their inconsistent coolness.