I told you I should." "Then you won't be surprised that I too sent mine." "I don't understand what you mean ?" "When this morning you said there would be seven for dinner to-night, I of course realized that you meant to stick to what you had said about Lord Donald yesterday; and as I particularly want to see Lord Donald, I sent the new groom to the village this morning with a wire to him to say that I should be glad if he would arrange to give me luncheon at the Ritz next Wednesday.

I have to go up to try a dress on." Lord Buntingford paused a moment, looking apparently at the cigarette with which his fingers were playing.
"You proposed, I imagine, that Mrs.Friend should go with you ?" "Oh, yes, to my dressmaker's.

Then I would arrange for her to go somewhere to lunch--Debenham's, perhaps." "And it was your idea then to go alone--to meet Lord Donald ?" He looked up.
"He would wait for me in the lounge at the Ritz.

It's quite simple!" Philip Buntingford laughed--good-humouredly.
"Well, it is very kind of you to have told me so frankly, Helena--because now I shall prevent it.

It is the last thing in the world that your mother would have wished, that you should be seen at the Ritz alone with Lord Donald.