was expected of him.

"It was so kind of you to come," said Mrs. Waddington, pivoting on her axis and panting like a hart after the water-brooks.

"Not at all."

"I knew I could rely on you."

"You have only to command."

"You're such a true friend, though I have known you only such a short time."

"Is anything wrong?" asked Lord Hunstanton.

He was more than a little surprised to find himself at seven-forty in a house where he had been invited to dine at half-past eight. His dressing had been interrupted by a telephone-call from Mrs. Waddington's butler, begging him to come round at once: and, noting his hostess's agitation, he hoped that nothing had gone wonky with the dinner.

"Everything is wrong!"

Lord Hunstanton sighed inaudibly. Did this mean cold meat and a pickle?

"Sigsbee is having one of his spells!"

"You mean he has been taken ill?"

"Not ill. Fractious." Mrs. Waddington gulped. "It's so awful that this should have occurred on the night of an important dinner-party, after you have taken such trouble with his education. I have said a hundred times that, since you came, Sigsbee has been a different man. He knows all the forks now, and can even talk intelligently about soufflés."

"I am only too glad if any little pointers I have been able to...."

"And when I take him out for a run he always walks on the outside of the pavement. And here he must go, on the night of my biggest dinner-party, and have one of his spells."

"What is the trouble? Is he violent?"

"No. Sullen."

"What about?"

 Prev. P 25/230 next