Mademoiselle, in a new silk
dress, ran about the lower floor, followed by an agitated Grayson
with a cloth, for Mademoiselle was shifting ceaselessly and with
trembling hands vases of flowers, and spilling water at each shift.
At six o'clock had arrived a large square white box, which the
footman had carried to the rear and there exhibited, allowing a
palpitating cook, scullery maid and divers other excitable and
emotional women to peep within.
After which he tied it up again and carried it upstairs.
At seven o'clock Elinor Cardew, lovely in black satin, was carried
down the stairs and placed in a position which commanded both the
hall and the drawing-room. For some strange reason it was essential
that she should see both.
At seven-thirty came in a rush:
(a)--Mr. Alston Denslow, in evening clothes and gardenia, and
feeling in his right waist-coat pocket nervously every few minutes.
(b)--An excited woman of middle age, in a black silk dress still
faintly bearing the creases of five days in a trunk, and accompanied
by a mongrel dog, both being taken upstairs by Grayson, Mademoiselle,
Pink, and Howard Cardew. ("He said Jinx was to come," she explained
breathlessly to her bodyguard.
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