“Sit down, my dear, and tell me how you happen to be here,” said Mrs. Holt.  “I suppose Howard is downstairs.”

“No, he isn’t,” said Honora, rather breathlessly; “that’s the reason I came here.  That’s one reason, I mean.  I was coming to see you this morning, but I simply didn’t have time for a call after I got to town.”

Mrs. Holt settled herself in the middle of the sofa, the only piece of furniture in the room in harmony with her ample proportions.  Her attitude and posture were both judicial, and justice itself spoke in her delft-blue eyes.

“Tell me all about it,” she said, thus revealing her suspicions that there was something to tell.

“I was just going to,” said Honora, hastily, thinking of Trixton Brent waiting in the ladies’ parlour.  “I took lunch at Delmomico’s with Mr. Grainger, and Mr. Brent, and Mrs. Kame—­”

“Cecil Grainger?” demanded Mrs. Holt.

Honora trembled.

“Yes,” she said.

“I knew his father and mother intimately,” said Mrs. Holt, unexpectedly.  “And his wife is a friend of mine.  She’s one of the most executive women we have in the ‘Working Girls’ Association,’ and she read a paper today that was masterful.  You know her, of course.”

“No,” said Honora, “I haven’t met her yet.”

“Then how did you happen to be lunching with her husband?

“I wasn’t lunching with him, Mrs. Holt,” said Honora; “Mr. Brent was giving the lunch.”

“Who’s Mr. Brent?” demanded Mrs. Holt.  “One of those Quicksands people?”

“He’s not exactly a Quicksands person.  I scarcely know how to describe him.  He’s very rich, and goes abroad a great deal, and plays polo.  That’s the reason he has a little place at Quicksands.  He’s been awfully kind both to Howard and me,” she added with inspiration.

“And Mrs. Kame?” said Mrs. Holt.

“She’s a widow, and has a place at Banbury.

“I never heard of her,” said Mrs. Holt, and Honora thanked her stars.

“And Howard approves of these mixed lunches, my dear?  When I was young, husbands and wives usually went to parties together.”

A panicky thought came to Honora, that Mrs. Holt might suddenly inquire as to the whereabouts of Mr. Brent’s wife.

“Oh, Howard doesn’t mind,” she said hastily.  “I suppose times have changed, Mrs. Holt.  And after lunch we all went out in Mr. Brent’s automobile to the Faunces’ in Westchester—­”

“The Paul Jones Faunces?” Mrs. Holt interrupted.

“What a nice woman that young Mrs. Faunce is!  She was Kitty Esterbrook, you know.  Both of them very old families.”

“It was only,” continued Honora, in desperation, “it was only to leave Mr. Grainger and Mrs. Kame there to spend the night.  They all said we had plenty of time to go and get back to Quicksands by six o’clock.  But coming back the automobile broke down—­”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Holt, “it serves any one right for trusting to them.  I think they are an invention of the devil.”