Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
“There’s a lady downstairs who wants to see one of you for a moment. She was on the doorstep, when I arrived, and your servants didn’t want to admit her. I gathered, however, that she’d been waiting for some time, so I made them let her in.”
Made. . . In the school in which I was brought up, the bare idea of giving orders to other people’s servants. . . I do not know whether you have been forced into contact with the world of “business men”, but I find their autocracy sometimes a little trying.
“A lady to see me?,” I said. “Really, this is not a reasonable time for calling.”
“I fancy it was your son, Lady Ann, that she asked for,” said Sir Appleton.
“Oh, I can’t be bothered to see people at this hour of the night,” said Will.
When Norden came in to announce dinner, I told him to explain that neither Will nor I could possibly desert our guest to talk to this girl at such a time. . .
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Sir Appleton.
“But I do!,” I said. “And I mind about dinner.”
“I should be disposed to see her,” said he. “Perhaps she’s in trouble.”
“It’ll keep till to-morrow,” said Will.
There was nothing so very heartless either
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