When the first number of the programme was over, Letty got up once more, opera-glass in hand, to search among the late-comers for her missing lover. She nodded to many acquaintances, but George Tressady was not to be seen; and she sat down finally in no mood either to listen or to enjoy, though the magician of the evening was already at work.
"There's something very special, isn't there, you want to see Sir George about to-night?" Tully inquired humbly when the next pause occurred.
"Of course there is!" said Letty, crossly. "You do ask such foolish questions, Tully. If I don't see him to-night, he may let that house in Brook Street slip. There are several people after it--the agents told me."
"Only because of _her_. If she makes him pay her that preposterous allowance, of course it will be too expensive. But I don't mean him to pay it."
"Lady Tressady is terribly extravagant," murmured Miss Tulloch.
"Well, so long as she isn't extravagant with his money--_our_ money--I don't care a rap," said Letty; "only she sha'n't spend all her own and all ours too, which is what she has been doing. When George was away he let her live at Ferth, and spend almost all the income, except five hundred a year that he kept for himself. And _then_ she got so shamefully into debt that he doesn't know when he shall ever clear her. He gave her money at Christmas, and again, I am _sure_, just lately. Well! all I know is that it must be _stopped_. I don't know that I shall be able to do much till I'm married, but I mean to make him take this house."
"Is Lady Tressady nice to you? She is in town, isn't she?"
"Oh yes! she's in town. Nice?" said Letty, with a little laugh. "She can't bear me, of course; but we're quite civil."
"I thought she tried to bring it on?" said the confidante, anxious, above all things, to be sympathetic.
"Well, she brought him to the Corfields, and let me know she had. I don't know why she did it. I suppose she wanted to get something out of him. Ah! _there_ he is!"
And Letty stood up, smiling and beckoning, while Tressady's tall thin figure made its way along the central passage.
"Horrid House! What made you so late?" she said, as he sat down between her and Miss Tulloch.
George Tressady looked at her with delight. The shrewish contractions in the face, which had been very evident to Tully a few minutes before, had all disappeared, and the sharp slight lines of it seemed to George the height of delicacy. At sight of him colour and eyes had brightened. Yet at the same time there was not a trace of the raw girl about her. She knew very well that he had no taste for _ingénues_, and she was neither nervous nor sentimental in his company.