Logotheti thought it would be simpler and more tactful to go at once, since Lady Maud was in a hurry, having stopped on her way to the play, presumably in the hope of seeing Margaret alone.  To his surprise she asked him to stay; but as he thought she might be doing this out of mere civility he said he had an engagement.

‘Will it keep for ten minutes?’ asked Lady Maud gravely.

’Engagements of that sort are very convenient.  They will keep any length of time.’

Logotheti sat down again, smiling, but he wondered what Lady Maud was going to say, and why she wished him to remain.

‘It will save a note,’ she said, by way of explanation.  ’My father and I want you to come to Craythew for the week-end after this,’ she continued, turning to Margaret.  ’We are asking several people, so it won’t be too awfully dull, I hope.  Will you come?’

‘With pleasure,’ answered the singer.

‘And you too?’ Lady Maud looked at Logotheti.

‘Delighted—­most kind of you,’ he replied, somewhat surprised by the invitation, for he had never met Lord and Lady Creedmore.  ’May I take you down in my motor?’ he spoke to Margaret.  ’I think I can do it under four hours.  I’m my own chauffeur, you know.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Margaret answered with a rather malicious smile.  ’No, thank you!’

‘Does he often kill?’ inquired Lady Maud coolly.

‘I should be more afraid of a runaway,’ Margaret said.

‘Get that new German brake,’ suggested Lady Maud, not understanding at all.  ’It’s quite the best I’ve seen.  Come on Friday, if you can.  You don’t mind meeting Mr. Van Torp, do you?  He is our neighbour, you remember.’

The question was addressed to Margaret, who made a slight movement and unconsciously glanced at Logotheti before she answered.

‘Not at all,’ she said.

’There’s a reason for asking him when there are other people.  I’m not divorced after all—­you had not heard?  It will be in the Times to-morrow morning.  The Patriarch of Constantinople turns out to be a very sensible sort of person.’

‘He’s my uncle,’ observed Logotheti.

’Is he?  But that wouldn’t account for it, would it?  He refused to believe what my husband called the evidence, and dismissed the suit.  As the trouble was all about Mr. Van Torp my father wants people to see him at Craythew.  That’s the story in a nutshell, and if any of you like me you’ll be nice to him.’

She leaned back in her corner of the little sofa and looked first at one and then at the other in an inquiring way, but as if she were fairly sure of the answer.

‘Every one likes you,’ said Logotheti quietly, ’and every one will be nice to him.’

‘Of course,’ chimed in Margaret.

She could say nothing else, though her intense dislike of the American millionaire almost destroyed the anticipated pleasure of her visit to Derbyshire.