Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/41

Rh retreated as he had come, and Lady Sandgate, all hospitality, received the many-sided author of her specious telegram, of Lord John's irritating confidence and of Lady Lappington's massive cheque.

 II

greeted him with an explicitly gracious welcome and both hands out, she had at once gone on: "You'll of course have tea?—in the saloon."

But his mechanism seemed of the type that has to expand and revolve before sounding. "Why, the very first thing?"

She only desired, as her laugh showed, to accommodate. "Ah, have it the last if you like!"

"You see your English teas—!" he pleaded as he looked about him, so immediately and frankly interested in the place and its contents that his friend could only have taken this for the very glance with which he must have swept Lady Lappington's inferior scene.

"They're too much for you?"

