She answered the call, then handed the receiver to Craven.
"Your heathen," she remarked dryly.
Though the least insular of women she had never grown accustomed to the Japanese valet. He turned from the telephone with a look of mingled embarrassment and relief.
"I sent a message to the convent this morning. Yoshio has just given me the answer. The Mother Superior will see me this afternoon." He endeavoured to make his voice indifferent, pulling down his waistcoat and picking a minute thread from off his coat sleeve. Miss Craven's mouth twitched at the evident signs of nervousness while she glanced at him narrowly. Prompt action in the matter of an uncongenial duty had not hitherto been a conspicuous trait in his character.
"You are certainly not letting the grass grow under your feet."
He jerked his head impatiently.
"Waiting will not make the job more pleasant," he shrugged. "I will see the child at once and arrange for her removal as soon as possible."
Miss Craven eyed him from head to foot with a grim smile that changed to a whole-hearted laugh of amusement.
"It's a pity you have so much money, Barry, you would make your fortune as a model. You are too criminally good looking to go fluttering into convents."
A ghost of the old smile flickered in his eyes.
"Come and chaperon me, Aunt Caro."
She shook her head laughingly.
"Thank you--no. There are limits. I draw the line at convents. Go and get it over, and if the child is presentable you can bring her back to tea. I gather that Mary is anticipating a complete failure on our part to sustain the situation and is prepared to deputise. She has already ransacked Au Paradis Des Enfants for suitable bribes wherewith to beguile her infantile affection. I understand that there was a lively scene over the purchase of a doll, the cost of which--clad only in its birthday dress--was reported to me as 'a fair affront.' Even after all these years Mary jibs at Continental prices. It is her way of keeping up the prestige of the British Empire, bless her. An overcharge, in her opinion, is a deliberate twist of the lion's tail."
In the taxi he looked through the correspondence he had received that morning for the lawyer's letter that would establish his claim to John Locke's child. Then he leaned back and lit a cigarette. He had an absurd feeling of nervousness and cursed Locke a dozen times before he reached the convent. He was embarrassed with the awkward situation in which he found himself--just how awkward he seemed only now fully to appreciate. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it. The coming interview with the Mother Superior was not the least of his troubles. The promise of the morning had not been maintained, overhead the sky was leaden, and a high wind drove rain in sharp splashes against the glass of the cab.