Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/130

116 yes, it was to be invited instantly to retrace her steps that she sat there panting and pink.

Meanwhile she was very upright and very serious; she seemed very anxious to explain. "I thought it better to come, since she wasn't there. I had gone off to walk home with the Marshes—I was gone rather long; and when I came back she had left the house—the servants told me she must be here."

Tony could only meet with the note of hospitality so logical a plea. "Oh, it's all right—Mrs. Beever's with Mrs. Bream." It was apparently all wrong—he must tell her she couldn't stay; but there was a prior complication in his memory of having invited her to luncheon. "I wrote to your cousin—I hoped you'd come. Unfortunately she's not staying herself."

"Ah, then, I mustn't!" Jean spoke with lucidity, but without quitting her chair. Tony hesitated. "She'll be a little while yet—my wife has something to say to her."

The girl had fixed her eyes on the floor; she might have been reading there the fact that for the first time in her life she was regularly calling on a