The Cockney voice suggested a mean, back-bent creature with bitten nails and cunning eyes, a Uriah Heep, cringing but sinister. She did not care for him to know that she had lost her temper; only this and the need to punish Jack for his latest indignity kept her from refusing to accompany him to the theatre.
"Oh, ask him to write," she answered with attempted carelessness.
As she ceased speaking, her maid came in to say that Mr. Webster had called. They had not met since their quarrel on the afternoon of Lady Knightrider's dance; and she was secretly relieved at the hardiness of his ill-humour, for of all men he least repaid the discredit which she earned by being seen in his company. At best he was a good-natured, plastic slave with a ubiquitous car and a knack of securing seats in theatres and tables in restaurants when others failed; at worst he was an enigmatic sensualist, who attracted her because he privately frightened her. They met first on the common ground of an interest in spiritualism, later as companions in misfortune; Sonia Dainton alleged that he was always inviting chorus-girls to his rooms and giving them too much to drink for the amusement of hearing what they would say; some one else added that he smoked opium, and an agreeable air of mystery surrounded an otherwise disagreeable young man. After their last quarrel Lady Barbara had decided to give him up; and she only wavered now because she wanted a whipping-boy and felt that she was in some way scoring a point against Jack by receiving him.
"I'll see him—up here," she told her maid.
Her face was still flushed from the telephone altercation, and she posed herself carefully, backing the window, but with the curtains thrown to their widest extent, so that Webster's œdematous eyelids blinked as he crossed the room and held out a plump white hand.
"New car d'livered t'day," he wheezed. The habit, induced by intemperance, of slurring the major parts of speech and omitting the minor survived even in his sober diction. "'Wondered if you'd care come spin."
"Oh? I was wondering whether you'd been ill."
"Ill?" He shook his head and coughed. "No. Only too many cigarettes. Care come?"
"Not till you've apologized for your behaviour to me, Mr. Webster."
"Haven't least idea what mean, but I'll apologize. Always ready apologize."