She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!”
“Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,” Mr. Bender asked, “is Lord John?”
Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”
The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out—!” She gave him in fine his choice.
But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his prudence. “Are there any pictures in the park?”
Lady Grace’s facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more play. “We find our park itself rather a picture.”
Mr. Bender’s own levity at any rate persisted. “With a big Temperance school-feast?”
“Mr. Bender’s a great judge of pictures,” Lady Sandgate said as to forestall any impression of excessive freedom.
“Will there be more tea?” he pursued, almost presuming on this.
It showed Lady Grace for comparatively candid and literal. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of tea.”