Part 12 (1/2)

Lady Beatrice seized and stroked the fat hand lying upon the pink silk coverlet.

”You darling, ducky Aunt Seraphim! Just that! I want to wear my enchanting boy's dress--I must be Ganymede, the cupbearer!”

”Well, I'll be no party to it--be off with you. I have serious affairs to settle with Miss Bush and have no further time to waste.”

Lady Beatrice saluted her obediently and got off the bed once more; she was laughing softly.

”Gerard is coming to lunch,” Lady Garribardine called to her, ”and Lao Delemar, and they are going to see a winter exhibition afterwards.”

”I can't stand Lao,” Lady Beatrice cooed from the doorway; ”she pretends to be so full of s.e.x and other dreadful natural things, she makes my innocent aesthetic flesh creep--Gerard always had fruity tastes--Bye-bye, dear Aunt Sarah!” And kissing her finger-tips she was at last gone, leaving Katherine wondering.

They had said very severe things to each other and neither was the least angry really--Gladys and Fred were not wont to bicker so.

”Call up Mr. Strobridge, Miss Bush--he will not have left home yet--you know his number--ask him to speak to me at once.”

Katherine obeyed--she was an expert with the telephone and never raised her voice. Mr. Strobridge was soon at the other end of it, and she was about to hand the receiver to her employer when that lady frowned and told her to give the message herself.

”My right ear is troublesome to-day,” she said, ”you must do the business for me, Miss Bush.”

”h.e.l.lo! Her Ladys.h.i.+p wishes me to give you a message--will you wait a moment until I take it?”

”h.e.l.lo! Yes.”

”Say he is to come half an hour earlier to lunch to-day. I have things to talk over with him about to-night--He is to go to this ridiculous ball in my box--tell him so.”

Katherine repeated the exact message.

”Tell her I am very much annoyed about the whole thing,” Mr. Strobridge returned, ”and have decided not to be present myself.”

”Stuff and nonsense!” cried Lady Garribardine, when she was told, and, seizing the receiver from Katherine's hand, she roared:

”Don't be a fool, G.--it is too late in the day to stand upon your dignity--I'll tell you the rest when you come to lunch.”--Upon which she closed the communication and called for Stirling.

”Take all this rubbish of letters away, Miss Bush--I must get up and cope with the humiliating defects of old age--you may go.”

Katherine had a very busy morning in front of her. She sat steadily typing and writing in the secretary's room, until her lunch was brought and even then she hardly stopped to eat it, but on her own way to the dining-room Lady Garribardine came in. She looked at the hardly tasted food and blinked her black eyes:

”Tut, tut! You must eat, child--_pas trop de zele_--Finish your pudding--and then bring me those two letters upon the report of the Wineberger charity--into the dining-room--You can have your coffee with us--Mr. Strobridge and I are alone, Mrs. Delemar is not coming, after all--By the way, do you have everything you want? The coffee they give you is good, eh? Servants always skimp the beans when left to themselves.”

”I have everything I want, thank you--but I have not been offered coffee,” Katherine replied.

Lady Garribardine's face a.s.sumed an indignant expression, and she sharply rang the bell.

”These are the things that happen when one does not know of them--you ought to have complained to me before, Miss Bus.h.!.+”

Thomas answered the bell and whitened perceptibly when he saw his mistress's face. He was asked why Miss Bush had not been served with coffee, in a voice which froze his tongue, and the only excuse he could give was a stammering statement that Miss Arnott had not taken any, which aroused further wrath.

”Pampered wretches!” Lady Garribardine exclaimed. ”Anything to save themselves trouble! I will speak to Bronson about this--but see that it never happens again, Thomas!” And the trembling footman was allowed to leave the room.

”I am glad you did not try to defend them, as the foolish Arnott would have done,” Her Ladys.h.i.+p flashed. ”She was always standing between my just wrath and the servant's delinquencies, always s.h.i.+elding them--one would have thought she was of their cla.s.s. The result was no one in the house respected her--good creature though she was. See that you are respected, young woman, and obeyed when obedience is your due.”