“I will be with you in a few moments,” she said, and passed out of the room to put on her outdoor things.
When she returned she found Madame already on her feet, as though anxious to depart—and anxious to depart she was.
From the beginning Mme. Estelle had cherished no liking for her mission, and the sight of Kathleen's pale and troubled beauty had unnerved her not a little. The place oppressed her.
She admitted to herself that her notions were entirely fanciful, but still the whole atmosphere of the rather sombre and old-fashioned drawing-room seemed charged with tragedy.
Kathleen preceded her visitor down the stairs, and then they entered the car. It was the Premier's official attendant who opened and shut the door of the motor for them. The chauffeur was apparently busy with the machinery, his head inside the bonnet.
Whatever small trouble the man was encountering with the engines was of short duration, for Kathleen had scarcely settled herself in her seat before the car began to move.
As the big motor car swung round into Whitehall a second car entered Downing Street and had to draw up short in order to avoid a collision. Kathleen, thinking that an accident was unavoidable, leant forward and looked out of the window, and, to her astonishment, she discerned the face of Westerham in the other car.
She drew back again with an exclamation, and though she set it down as imagination at the time, she had no doubt afterwards that as a matter of fact Mme. Estelle had become deathly pale.
The car proceeded at a rapid rate up Whitehall and turning along Pall Mall made its way into Piccadilly.
The run to Richmond was a smooth one, unmarked by any incident, and for the most part, both the women were profoundly silent.
Each, indeed, was occupied with her own thoughts. Mme. Estelle, as she cast furtive and sidelong glances at Lady Kathleen, became more jealous and a little more disinclined to believe Melun's protestations at every mile.
She would have given much to be able to ask Lady Kathleen point-blank whether or not Melun had made a marriage with her one of the conditions which he was seeking to foist on the Prime Minister. But she had the good sense to see that even a tentative question of this sort would instantly arouse Lady Kathleen's suspicions. Even as the pseudo agent of the Russian Government her knowledge of affairs could not be supposed to include a matter such as this.