Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/144

 smile so characteristic of her. She was puzzled; but too well-bred to show it.

"Won't you have some tea?" She looked about her, then fixing her eyes upon a dark man in khaki, with smouldering eyes, called to him, introduced him, and had just time to say:

"Godfrey, see that Miss Brent has some tea," when a rush of callers swept Miss Brent and Captain Godfrey Elton further into the room.

Miss Brent looked about her with interest. She had read of how Lady Meyfield had turned her houses, both town and country, into convalescent homes for soldiers; but she was surprised to see men in hospital garb mixing freely with the other guests. Elton saw her surprise.

"Lady Meyfield has her own ideas of what is best," he remarked as he handed her a cup of tea.

Miss Brent looked up interrogatingly.

"She had some difficulty at first," continued Elton; "but eventually she got her own way as she always does. Now the official hospitals send her their most puzzling cases and she cures them."

"How?" enquired Miss Brent with interest.

"Imagination," said Elton, bowing to a pretty brunette at the other side of the room. "She is too wise to try and fatten a canary on a dog biscuit."

"Does she keep canaries then?" enquired Miss Brent.

"I'm afraid that was only my clumsy effort at metaphor," responded Elton with a disarming