ONE:"Yes? Well, I think that's good."Another week passed, and still he waited for some word from his secretary about the book-plate. He was not going to be eager about it, for he would not confess to himself the anxiety with which he awaited an opportunity that his twenty-five shillings a week secretary had denied him. But day by day he scrutinized her face, and wondered if she was going to say that the book-plate was finished.
TWO:
THREE:"Only about old Mr. Winchape," said Mrs. Masters, as she packed the tea things. "He's seen the man that knocked the cricketers down with the bat. That is, if he is a man, but they do say"
FORE:This certainly appeared to have been the case: Lady Keelings miscroscopic mind seemed to have diverted its minute gaze altogether from Norah. To Keeling that was a miscroscopic relief, but no more, for it seemed to him to matter very little what his wife thought about Norah.
CHAPTER FIVEIt really all passed off very tolerably, she said; do you not think so, my dear? And was it not gratifying? Just as the dear Princess shook hands with me for the second time before she drove away, holding my hand quite a long time, she said, And I hear your friends will not call you Mrs Keeling very much longer. Was not that delicately put? How common Lady Inverbroom looked beside her, but, after all, we cant all be princesses. I was told by the lady-in-waiting, who was a very civil sort of woman indeed, that Her Royal Highness was going to stay with the poor Inverbrooms next month. I can hardly believe that: I should not think it was at all a likely sort of thing to happen, but I felt I really ought to warn Mrs{249}I did not quite catch her namewhat a very poor sort of dinner her mistress would get, if she fared no better than we did. But we must keep our ears open next month to find out if it really does happen, though I dare say we shall be the first to know, for after to-day Lady Inverbroom could scarcely fail to ask us to dine and sleep again.It dawned faintly and vaguely on Mrs Keelings mind, as on summits remote from where she transacted her ordinary mental processes, that her husband did not quite mean what he said about that county-courting. Possibly there lurked in those truculent remarks some recondite sort of humour.