In her reply to his note Lady Mary named an afternoon when she would be alone. She was as good as her word, and when MacMaster arrived he found the drawing room empty. Lady Mary entered shortly after he was announced. She was a tall woman, thin and stiffly jointed, and her body stood out under the folds of her gown with the rigor of cast iron. This rather metallic suggestion was further carried out in her heavily knuckled hands, her stiff gray hair, and her long, bold-featured face, which was saved from freakishness only by her alert eyes.
“Really,” said Lady Mary, taking a seat beside him and giving him a sort of military inspection through her nose glasses, “really, I had begun to fear that I had lost you altogether. It's four years since I saw you at Nice, isn't it? I was in Paris last winter, but I heard nothing from you.”
“I was in New York then.”
“It occurred to me that you might be. And why are you in London?”
“Can you ask?” replied MacMaster gallantly.
Lady Mary smiled ironically. “But for what else, incidentally?”
“Well, incidentally, I came to see Treffinger's studio and his unfinished picture. Since I've been here, I've decided to stay the summer. I'm even thinking of attempting to do a biography of him.”
“So that is what brought you to London?”
“Not exactly. I had really no intention of anything so serious when I came. It's his last picture, I fancy, that has rather thrust it upon me. The notion has settled down on me like a thing destined.”
“You'll not be offended if I question the clemency of such a destiny,” remarked Lady Mary dryly. “Isn't there rather a surplus of books on that subject already?”