“I dare say I could get some men in the club to ballot for you—if you don’t mind waiting a little longer.”
“Would you really try?” she said, her eyes beaming gratitude and apparent astonishment.
“With pleasure,” said Goddard.
During his absence she turned over the advertisement pages of a railway time-table, and devised in her mind various club improvements that might conduce to the comfort of lady strangers. When he came back she rose, saw from the look of pleasure on his face that he had been successful.
“I have seen Jervons, the member for Twickenham. He undertakes to get half-a-dozen men to ballot for you; so if they are successful the orders will be round at your house before five o’clock. Will that do?”
“Beautifully,” said Lady Phayre: “a thousand thanks.”
“I’m afraid it won’t be very interesting,” said Goddard—“the Army Estimates will be on.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” said Lady Phayre cheerfully: “the child will be pleased, whatever it is. I shall take a novel.”
He did not reply, but looked down at her from his superior height, one hand grasping his hat and stick, the other on his hip. There was a tiny pause. So Lady Phayre looked up at him and smiled. There was just the faintest gleam of mockery in her eyes, a transient consciousness of the feminine magic that had made the huge, powerful man do her bidding with the lightness of an Ariel. She put out a delicately gloved hand from her sealskin muff.
“I was saving up a quarrel with you, Mr. Goddard,” she said, “for not having been to see me. Surely you could have spared just one half-hour.”