"
"This is very sudden," she laughed. "I am very flattered--but what does
it mean?"
"Permission to call upon you--and your aunt," he added, glancing around
the little circle.
"We shall be delighted," Maggie replied, "but you won't like my aunt.
She is a little deaf, and she has no sense of humour. She has come to
live with us because Lord Dorminster and I are not really related,
although we call ourselves cousins, and I should hate to leave Belgrave
Square. You shall take me out to tea to-morrow afternoon instead, if you
like."
A smouldering fire burned for a moment in his eyes.
"That will make me very happy," he said. "I shall attend you at four
o'clock."
Thenceforward, conversation became general. Prince Shan, with the air
of one who has achieved his immediate object, left his place by Maggie's
side and talked with grave courtesy to her aunt. Presently the little
party broke up, bound, it seemed, for the same theatre. Nigel had become
a little serious.
"Well, you've made a good start, Maggie," he remarked, leaning forward
in his place in the limousine.
"Have I?" Maggie answered thoughtfully. "I wonder!"
"I wish we could get at him in some different fashion," her companion
observed uneasily.
"My dear man, I'm hardened to these enterprises," Maggie assured him. "I
even let the President of the German Republic hold my hand once when his
wife wasn't looking. Nothing came of it," she added, with a little sigh.
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