"At twenty minutes past five, daddy," Effie said promptly.
"Twenty minutes past five! Why, you don't mean to say that you were an hour coming that little way! Did you get blocked in the fog?"
"No, daddy, but----"
"But what, dear?"
"Anne did tell me not to say!"
"But I tell you to say, dear--never mind Anne!"
"Anne stopped and talked to the ticket-man for a long, long time."
"Oh, did she?" he said.
At that moment the parlourmaid came to say that Lady Honoria and the "gentleman" were waiting for dinner. Geoffrey asked her casually what time Miss Effie had reached home.
"About half-past five, sir. Anne said the cab was blocked in the fog."
"Very well. Tell her ladyship that I shall be down in a minute."
"Daddy," said the child, "I haven't said my prayers. Mother did not come, and Anne said it was all nonsense about prayers. Auntie did always hear me my prayers."
"Yes, dear, and so will I. There, kneel upon my lap and say them."
In the middle of the prayers--which Effie did not remember as well as she might have done--the parlourmaid arrived again.
"Please, sir, her ladyship----"
"Tell her ladyship I am coming, and that if she is in a hurry she can go to dinner! Go on, love."
Then he kissed her and put her to bed again.
"Daddy," said Effie, as he was going, "shall I see auntie Beatrice any more?"
"I hope so, dear."
"And shall you see her any more? You want to see her, don't you, daddy? She did love you very much!"
Geoffrey could bear it no longer. The truth is always sharper when it comes from the mouth of babes and sucklings. With a hurried good-night he fled.
In the little drawing-room he found Lady Honoria, very well dressed, and also her friend, whose name was Mr. Dunstan. Geoffrey knew him at once for an exceedingly wealthy man of small birth, and less breeding, but a burning and a shining light in the Garsington set. Mr. Dunstan was anxious to raise himself in society, and he thought that notwithstanding her poverty, Lady Honoria might be useful to him in this respect. Hence his presence there to-night.
"How do you do, Geoffrey?" said his wife, advancing to greet him with a kiss of peace. "You look very well. But what an immense time you have been dressing. Poor Mr. Dunstan is starving. Let me see. You know Mr. Dunstan, I think. Dinner, Mary."
Geoffrey apologised for being late, and shook hands politely with Mr. Dunstan--Saint Dunstan he was generally called on account of his rather clerical appearance and in sarcastic allusion to his somewhat shady reputation. Then they went in to dinner.