Neither of the ladies at the window took any notice of Frank’s entrance. He hobbled across the room and sat down beside Priscilla. She got up at once and, without looking at him, walked demurely to the chair on which Miss Lentaigne was sitting.
“Please, Aunt Juliet,” she said, “may I go to bed? I think it’s time.”
Miss Lentaigne looked at her a little doubtfully. She had known Priscilla for many years and had learned to be particularly suspicious of meekness.
“I heard the stable clock strike,” said Priscilla. “It’s half-past nine.”
“Very well,” said Miss Lentaigne. “Good-night.”
Priscilla kissed her aunt lightly on her left cheek bone. Then she held out her hand to Lady Torrington.
“You may kiss me,” said the lady. “You seem to be a very quiet well behaved little girl.”
Priscilla kissed Lady Torrington and then passed on to Frank.
“Good-night, Cousin Frank,” she said. “I hope you’re not tired after being out in the boat, and I hope your ankle will be better tomorrow.”
Her eyes still had an expression of cherubic innocence; but just as she let go Frank’s hand she winked abruptly. He found as she turned away, that she had left something in his hand. He unfolded a small, much crumpled piece of blotting paper, taken, he supposed, by stealth from the writing table beside Priscilla’s chair. A note was scratched with a point of a pin on the blotting paper.
“Come to the shrubbery, ten sharp. Most important. Excuse scratching. No pencil.”
“Priscilla,” said Lady Torrington, “is a sweet child, very subdued and modest.”
Frank’s attention was arrested by the silvery sweetness of the tone in which she spoke. He had a feeling that she meant to convey to Miss Lentaigne something more than her words implied. Miss Lentaigne struck a match noisily and lit another cigarette.
“She may be a little wanting in animation,” said Lady Torrington, “but that is a fault which one can forgive nowadays when so many girls run into the opposite extreme and become self-assertive.”
“Priscilla,” said Miss Lentaigne, “is not always quite so good as she was this evening.”
“You must be quite pleased that she isn’t,” said Lady Torrington, with a deliberate, soft smile. “With your ideas about the independence of our sex I can quite understand that Priscilla, if she were always as quiet and gentle as she was this evening, would be trying, very trying.”