“Hullo! How are you?,” he jerked out. “Just let me finish these, will you?”
“I wanted to have a word with you, if you could spare time,” said Eric.
“Come along.” Gaymer crossed the hall slowly, reading the last of his letters, and threw open the door of a small sitting-room decorated with Vogue plates and furnished with a divan, two arm-chairs and a low Moorish table. “What’ll you have to drink?,” he asked.
“Nothing, thanks... I’d better explain why I’m here. I was at the opera last night, and Lady Maitland asked me to see Ivy home. I put her into a taxi just by the Royal Stables, but, when I got home, Lady Maitland telephoned to say that she wasn’t in yet; did I know what had happened to her? This morning Ivy called on me, and I gathered that, after leaving me, she’d come here.”
Gaymer rang the bell and ordered whiskey to be brought in.
“So it was you she was walking with?” he said. “I couldn’t see.”
“Yes... As the result of coming here, she’s rather upset; and I wanted to straighten things out, if I could.”
Gaymer filled his tumbler and looked at Eric over the top, slightly raising his eyebrows.
“Well, drive ahead,” he recommended.
“You and she are engaged, aren’t you?”