Helena looked at the clock. Ten minutes to eight! No parcel-post. What could it be, possibly? Not Hubert back? She felt a quick shame of the dough-nut.
It was beneath the table safely before Lily entered.
"Please'm," said the maid, "it's Mr. Alison wants to speak to you."
Helena went out into the hall. "Hullo," she said, hoping he had not expected dinner. "Have you been to the Institute? What was it like?"
"Been," he laughed. "No! It's only ten to eight. This is an eight-o'clocker, you know. G. K. S. will never stand things at the ordinary time!"
This was a blow. Helena, not letting herself think of all that she was missing, had yet fancied that it was safely over. And it had not even begun... "Oh," was all that she said.
"I went along," Geoffrey Alison proceeded quickly, as though every instant counted, "because I am a steward so had to be early, and asked just out of curiosity where you were sitting. They said, so to speak, you weren't! I knew you both intended coming so I ran across. I've got two tickets just returned, so if----"
"How very kind of you," said Helena, feeling that she could almost slay him; "but it wasn't that we couldn't get in. Hubert at the last moment found that he wasn't free, so we sent our seats back. He suddenly remembered he was dining out." She tried to make it sound as though there had not been a tiff.
"Dining out?" repeated Geoffrey Alison, "Well then, you're free to come along like all the other ones?"
"Oh no, thank you; I don't think I will," said Helena. She had not forgotten about Mrs. Boyd.
"But you simply _must_," replied the other, pulling out his watch. "They'll be beginning if we don't make haste. You couldn't miss this possibly; it's far the best of the whole series. Old Dr. Kenyon, too, thinks art is a disease and intends asking questions. It will be tremendous. Come along or you will make us late."
"But I'm not tidy or anything," said Helena. Definite objections are the first steep steps down from refusal to complaisance.
He recognised this. "So much the better," he cried in prompt triumph. "Unprepared things are always the best sport. You don't need wraps; it's like a summer night and you look very smart. Come on! Your husband won't object. It will be simply grand. We'll have a picnic causerie!"