He half rose. Then his glance fell upon my companion. Mr. Waters was then in the act of putting money down upon the little tray the waiter handed.

And then I saw the expression of eager delight on Sydney’s dark, rather dreamy-looking, face give place to a hurt surprise, as he sat back again in his chair.

At the same moment Lady Vandeleur turned quickly, fixing her own gaze upon our table.

Immediately the gaze became a blank stare,[56] while her exquisitely-pencilled eyebrows rose almost to the edge of her costly “transformation.” She’d recognized me, of course. But stony displeasure and outraged convention gleamed in the eyes that she instantly averted.

[56]

You see, in her world a girl of my age is not supposed to lunch at the Carlton without a chaperon of some sort, and with an unspecified young man.

Up to this occasion I, Colonel Trant’s daughter, had been of that world, of those conventions. The Vandeleurs were evidently shocked at the lapse.

Dear old Sydney, old-fashionedly chivalrous towards women, was also old-fashionedly strict; and his mother—well! she was merely glad of the excuse to cut me.

Under the circumstances I need not have minded. But one is not consistent. I minded horribly the idea of what they might be thinking about me—that I had become horrid, forward, fast.

Something that seemed as hard and hot as a baked paving-stone seemed to settle between my chest and my throat as I fumbled at the last button of my long white gloves, and, in answer to Mr. Waters’ business-like “Ready, Miss Trant?” I rose to follow him out.

Lady Vandeleur’s tortoiseshell-handled lorgnette rose also. I saw her turn a searching[57] scrutiny upon my blond, glossily-groomed, well-to-do looking escort.

[57]

Again a horrible hint of what she might be thinking of me passed through my mind. She knew I worked now in the City; she would think—Sydney would think—I had made it an excuse for “picking up” the attentions of a wealthy business-man, perhaps my employer. From every point of view it is considered “bad form” for the head of a firm to have anything to say to his typist out of business-hours.

All this she would say to Sydney, and to that girl. 

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