Lady Ferringhall lifted her eyes to the newcomer, and the greeting in
them was obviously meant for him alone. She continued to fan herself.
"You are late," she murmured.
"My chief," he said, "took it into his head to have an impromptu
dinner party. He brought home a few waverers to talk to them where
they had no chance of getting away."
She nodded.
"I am bored," she said abruptly. "This is a very foolish sort of
entertainment. And, as usual," she continued, a little bitterly, "I
seem to have been sent along with the dullest and least edifying of
Mrs. Montressor's guests."
Ennison glanced at the other people in the box and smiled.
"I got your note just in time," he remarked. "I knew of course that
you were at the Montressor's, but I had no idea that it was a music
hall party afterwards. Are you all here?"
"Five boxes full," she answered. "Some of them seem to be having an
awfully good time too. Did you see Lord Delafield and Miss Anderson?
They packed me in with Colonel Anson and Mrs. Hitchings, who seem to
be absolutely engrossed in one another, and a boy of about seventeen,
who no sooner got here than he discovered that he wanted to see a man
in the promenade and disappeared."
Ennison at once seated himself.
"I feel justified then," he said, "in annexing his chair. I expect you
had been snubbing him terribly."
"Well, he was presumptuous," Annabel remarked, "and he wasn't nice
about it. I wonder how it is," she added, "that boys always make love
so impertinently."
Ennison laughed softly.
"I wonder," he said, "how you would like to be made love to--boldly or
timorously or sentimentally."
"Are you master of all three methods?" she asked, stopping her fanning
for a moment to look at him.
"Indeed, no," he answered. "Mine is a primitive and unstudied manner.
It needs cultivating, I think."
His fingers touched hers for a moment under the ledge of the box.
"That sounds so uncouth," she murmured. "I detest amateurs."
"I will buy books and a lay figure," he declared, "to practise upon.
Or shall I ask Colonel Anson for a few hints?"
"For Heaven's sake no," she declared. "I would rather put up with your
own efforts, however clumsy. Love-making at first hand is dull enough.
At second hand it would be unendurable."
He leaned towards her.
"Is that a challenge?"
She shrugged her shoulders, all ablaze with jewels.
"Why not? It might amuse me."
Somewhat irrelevantly he glanced at the next few boxes where the rest
of Mrs. Montressor's guests were.
"Is your husband here to-night?" he asked.
"My husband!" she laughed a little derisively. "No, he wouldn't come
here of all places--just now. He dined, and then pleaded a political
engagement. I was supposed to do the same, but I didn't."