She asserted herself sufficiently, however, to declare her intention of calling upon the Inglis girls in their flat in West Kensington. She had written to Lulu, who sent her a pressing invitation to come on Saturday afternoon, when they were at leisure.
Miss Waller instantly denounced the scheme as a wild-goose chase, asserting that May was certain to lose her way. They were still discussing it when Mr. Lang came in from Palace Gardens, as he usually did first thing in the morning, ostensibly to ask what they wished to do, but really to order them about at his sovereign will and pleasure. "Well, ladies, what's the programme for to-day?" he began.
May turned round from the window of the handsome drawing-room for which her aunt was paying a small fortune, thinking, as the morning sunlight fell upon his podgy figure, that Mr. Lang grew uglier and more common-looking every day. "I have promised to go and see my friends the Inglises this afternoon," she announced firmly.
[Illustration: "This is my new doctor--Dr. Inglis."--_p. 509._]
"Some girls who live at West Kensington," returned May, colouring at his lordly tone.
"Their brother is a doctor--a very unsuccessful one at Beachbourne," put in Miss Waller irritably. "They are very poor, and live in a poky flat. What May can see in them I can't imagine; and I'm sure she'll get lost if she goes alone."
"I can take a cab, aunt." By a perfect miracle she had a few shillings in her pocket.
"I'll tell you what," pompously proclaimed Mr. Lang. "You shall go in a cab, Mrs. Burnside, if you really must, and I'll call and bring you back in my carriage. Eh, Miss Waller?"
"Oh, what a splendid idea!" gushed the spinster, brightening; and, though May protested earnestly against troubling Mr. Lang, he was resolute. Then he carried them off to inspect a picture in a Bond Street shop which took his fancy--a seapiece, with violently ultramarine waves tumbling about the canvas. May considered it a most irritating production, and boldly said so; for, despite her aunt's frowns, she refused to flatter Mr. Lang. He took her criticism very good-naturedly, however, and insisted on their coming to luncheon with him at a fashionable Regent Street restaurant, where only African millionaires and suchlike could afford to go.