Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/256

Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman pleasure before thinking about dinner. But one had to be civil to the man for this one night.

He was gone for nearly half an hour. Will and I waited and waited. . . At last he came back and said:

“I must apologize for keeping you so long. It was a complicated story.” Then he looked at Will. “I should like a word with you afterwards.” The agony of that dinner is a thing which I shall never forget. Sir Appleton sat in dead silence for half the meal, then roused himself to talk about red lacquer. That was his nearest approach to China, business. . . And, when we were alone, he turned to Will and said:

“How much does your mother know about it?”

“About what?,” Will asked, naturally enough.

“Now don’t try that kind of thing on me, young man!,” cried Sir Appleton in a quite unpardonable tone. And then, for the first time, I heard the facts about this girl’s unhappy condition. Will, apparently, knew, but she had not told her father or Arthur or anybody but Sir Appleton. And how much of it was true. . . 244