While Miss Ley spoke a note was brought in.
“How tiresome!” she cried, having read. “Mr. Castillyon writes to say he cannot leave the House to-night till late. I wish they wouldn’t have autumn sessions. It’s just like him to think such a nonentity as himself is indispensable. Now I must ask someone to take his place.”
She sat down and hurriedly wrote a few words.
“My dear Frank,
“I beseech you to come to dinner to-night at eight, and since when you arrive your keen intelligence will probably suggest to you that I have not asked nine people on the spur of the moment, I will confess that I invite you merely because Mr. Castillyon has put me off at the last minute. But if you don’t come I will never speak to you again.
“Yours ever,
“Mary Ley.”
She rang the bell, and told a servant to take the letter immediately to Harley Street.
“I’ve asked Frank Hurrell,” she explained to Miss Langton. “He’s a nice boy—people remain boys till they’re forty now, and he’s ten years less than that. He’s a doctor, and by way of being rather distinguished; they’ve lately made him assistant-physician at St. Luke’s Hospital, and he’s set up in Harley Street waiting for patients.”
“Is he handsome?” asked Miss Langton, smiling.
“Not at all, but he’s one of the few persons I know who really amuses me. You’ll think him very disagreeable, and you’ll probably bore him to extinction.”
With this remark, calculated to put the younger woman entirely at her ease, Miss Ley sat down again at the window. The day was warm and sunny, but the trees, yellow and red with the first autumnal glow, were heavy still with the rain that had fallen in the night. There was a grave, sensuous passion about St. James’s Park, with its cool, smooth water just seen among the heavy foliage, and its well-tended lawns; and Miss Ley observed it in silence, with a vague feeling of self-satisfaction, for prosperity was a comfortable thing.