"Thank you, I'd rather stand. Cousin Philip, did you send that telegram
this morning?"

"Certainly. I told you I should."

"Then you won't be surprised that I too sent mine."

"I don't understand what you mean?"

"When this morning you said there would be seven for dinner to-night, I
of course realized that you meant to stick to what you had said about
Lord Donald yesterday; and as I particularly want to see Lord Donald, I
sent the new groom to the village this morning with a wire to him to say
that I should be glad if he would arrange to give me luncheon at the Ritz
next Wednesday. I have to go up to try a dress on."

Lord Buntingford paused a moment, looking apparently at the cigarette
with which his fingers were playing.

"You proposed, I imagine, that Mrs. Friend should go with you?"

"Oh, yes, to my dressmaker's. Then I would arrange for her to go
somewhere to lunch--Debenham's, perhaps."

"And it was your idea then to go alone--to meet Lord Donald?" He
looked up.

"He would wait for me in the lounge at the Ritz. It's quite simple!"

Philip Buntingford laughed--good-humouredly.