I shook my head. "I don't know the exact hour, but I can find out. Anyhow, it was on Wednesday afternoon."
"Ah!" she said, with a quick little intake of her breath. Then she paused. "You know that I am living with the Tregattocks?" she added.
"Lammersfield has just told me," I answered. "But it doesn't matter. I am going down to Woodford to-morrow, to stay with Maurice Furnivall, so you are not likely to have the distressing experience of coming across me again—at all events for a few days."
She looked at me strangely. "You think you will be safer there?" she asked.
I laughed. "Well, things can't be much more strenuous than they are in town; and, after all, Maurice is my cousin, you know."
"Your cousin!" she repeated half incredulously; and then a sudden light of revelation dawned in her eyes. With a quick gesture, she leaned forward and laid her hand on my sleeve. "Don't go," she said hurriedly. "I—"
At that moment there was a sound of footsteps in the hall, and round the corner of the palm trees came the ever-to-be-accursed figure of Mr. Justice Beauchamp.
"Ah, Miss de Rosen," he began, with the kind of ponderous fatuity that passes for humour on the Bench, "I find you like the Arab maiden beneath the palms."
Mercia, dear thing, smiled in her most charming manner. "And for the same reason," she said lightly. "The ballroom is unbearably hot."
"Without the other attractions of the desert," I added. "There, at least, one's toes are not trodden on."