Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/125

 his—"Oh, God, Terry!"—rung more confusingly in her ears. And whatever came, she meant to go on doing her best.

"Did you expect Lady Hereward to be at home to receive you the day before yesterday, when you called at Friars' Moat?"

Terry's raised eyebrows expressed precisely what she wished them to express. "I really wasn't sure whether she knew that we—my cousin Mrs. Ricardo and I—meant to call or not. I thought Mrs. Forestier might tell her. But I wasn't surprised not to find her at home."

"You didn't take that for a sign that—er—a visit would not be welcome to her?"

"Oh, not at all. We had been far too good friends for that, in the past. And there can never be a past in real friendship."

"Were you going away when the footman told you Lady Hereward was out?"

"I was."

"Did Sir Ian's arrival stop you?"

"Yes."

"Did he seem to you to be perfectly calm when he appeared?"

Terry's face did not change at all as she answered; "Perfectly." But her heart gave a great throb. It was fortunate for her, again, that the question had shaped itself so, for it would have been harder to answer,