CHAPTER XII
THE CROW’S CLIFF
Mrs. Beverley was giving one of her usual dinner-parties at Upper Brook Street. Among the guests were two Cabinet Ministers and their wives, for money can always command guests, the names of whom will be duly recorded in the society column of the Morning Post next day.
Money buys publicity, and without the latter nowadays one may as well live in suburbia, or in the peace of a country village.
When the hostess and her guests went to the drawing-room, Geoffrey—who had just come back from making some adjustments at the wireless station at Renfrew—managed to snatch a quarter of an hour with Sylvia in the cosy little sitting-room next to the library.
The young engineer had been telling her of his work up in Scotland, and of a pleasant Saturday he had spent up Loch Lomond, when the girl suddenly asked:
“How do you like Mrs. Mapleton, whom you took into dinner?”
“Oh, very nice,” he replied. “I suppose she’s a new friend of your mother?”
“No. We met her and her husband a year ago when we were at Hyères. They live near Madrid, and have asked us to go and stay with them for a month at their villa outside the city. Mother has accepted. Didn’t I hear you say that you might be sent out on business to Madrid?”