He looked round and saw Mrs. Ackroyde’s investigating eyes fixed upon him.
“You have pulled Adela Sellingworth out of the shell in which she has been living curled up for over ten years.”
“Yes. You are a prodigy!” said Lady Wrackley, showing her teeth.
“But I’m afraid I can’t claim that triumph. I’m afraid it’s due to Mr. Braybrooke’s diplomacy.”
“Oh, no!” Mrs. Ackroyde said calmly. “Adela would never yield to his cotton-glove persuasions. Besides, his diplomacy would shy away from Soho.”
“Oh, but Miss Van Tuyn performed that miracle!” said Craven, recovering himself.
“I don’t think so. You are too modest. But now, mind, I expect you to come down to Coombe to lunch on the first fine Sunday, and to bring Adela with you. Good night! Bobbie, where are you?”
And she followed Lady Wrackley and the young man with the turned-up nose to a big and shining motor which had just glided noiselessly up.
“Damn the women!” muttered Craven, as he pushed through the crowd into the ugly freedom of Shaftesbury Avenue.
Miss Van Tuyn and the members of the “old guard” went home to bed that night realizing that Lady Sellingworth had had “things” done to herself before she came out to the theatre party.
“She’s beginning again after--how many years is it?” said Lady Wrackley to Mrs. Ackroyde in the motor as they drove away from Shaftesbury.
“Ten,” said Mrs. Ackroyde, who was blessed with a sometimes painfully retentive memory.
“I suppose it’s Zotos,” observed Lady Wrackley.
“Who’s Zotos?” inquired young Leving of the turned-up nose and the larky expression.
“A Greek who’s a genius and who lives in South Moulton Street.”
“Things that men shouldn’t be allowed to know anything about. Talk to Bobbie for a minute, will you?”
“It must be Zotos. But even he will be in a difficulty with her if she wants to have very much done. She made the mistake of her life when she became an old woman. I remember saying at the time that some day she would repent in dust and ashes and want to get back, and that then it would be too late. How foolish she was!”
“She will be much more foolish now if she really begins again,” said Mrs. Ackroyde in her cool, common-sense way.
The young men were talking, and after a moment she continued: