Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/70



and her cousin's wife did not see each other after Terry came back from Friars' Moat to White Fields, until they met in the drawing-room just before dinner. Maud had been lying down trying to sleep off a headache, when her visitor returned; and Terry, after inquiring for Mrs. Ricardo's health, had gone straight to her room. Thus she had had more than two hours and a half to herself, when precisely at eight o'clock she descended the stairs to the drawing-room. She knew that Mrs. Ricardo was already there, for a message to that effect had just been sent her.

Terry was glad that Maud was so much better; nevertheless, instead of hurrying down to give the news of the afternoon, she kept her room till the last minute. Dinner was at eight; and if Maud's were a punctual household, there would be no time for any private talk before the two must go into the dining-room, and be waited upon by several discreet-looking but sharp-eared footmen.

As it happened, however, it was not a punctual household. Norman Ricardo, a captain in the Navy, away at present in command of his ship, when on leave