"Ask the _Maestro_ kindly to 'phone Miss Lermontof that I shall be ready
at eleven," she said quietly.
In some curious way this unlooked-for upset to her plans seemed to have
cast a shadow across her path. The warm surety of coming happiness which
had lapped her round receded, and a vague, indefinable apprehension
invaded her consciousness. It was as though she sensed something
sinister that lay in wait for her round the next corner, and all her
efforts to recapture the radiant exultation of her mood of yestereve, to
shake off the nervous dread that had laid hold of her, failed miserably.
Her breakfast was standing untouched on the table beside her bed. She
regarded it distastefully. Then, recalling with a wry smile Baroni's
dictum that "good food, and plenty of good food, means voice," she
reluctantly began to eat, idly turning over the while the pages of one of
the newspapers which Milling had placed beside the breakfast tray. It
was an illustrated weekly, and numbered amongst its staff an enterprising
young journalist, possessed of an absolute genius for nosing out such
matters as the principal people concerned in them particularly desired
kept secret. Those the enterprising young journalist's paper served up
piping-hot in their _Tattle of the Town_ column--a column denounced by
the pilloried few and devoured with eager interest by the rest of the
world.
Pages:
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291