“No, that will scarcely do, I'm afraid. But really, Mary, we must go and dress.”
“Where are you going, then?” said Tom.
“To an evening party at the Vice-Chancellor's; we are asked for nine o'clock, and the half hour has struck.”
“Hang the dons; how unlucky that I didn't know before! Have you any flowers, by the way?”
“Not one.”
“Then I will try to get you some by the time you are ready. May I?”
“Oh yes, pray, do,” said Mary. “That's capital, Katie, isn't it? Now I shall have some thing to put in my hair; I couldn't think what I was to wear.”
Tom took a look at the hair in question, and then left them and hastened out to scour the town for flowers, as if his life depended on success. In the morning he would probably have resented as insulting, or laughed at as wildly improbable, the suggestion that he would be so employed before night.
A double chair was drawn up opposite the door when he came back, and the ladies were coming down into the sitting-room.
“Oh look, Katie! What lovely flowers! How very kind of you.”