Trixton Brent hailed one of the hotel servants.

“Show Mrs. Spence to the ladies’ parlour,” said he.  And added to Honora, “I’ll get a table, and have the dinner card brought up in a few moments.”

Honora stopped the boy at the elevator door.

“Go to the office,” she said, “and find out if Mrs. Joshua Holt is in, and the number of her room.  And take me to the telephone booths.  I’ll wait there.”

She asked the telephone operator to call up Mr. Spence’s house at Quicksands—­and waited.

“I’m sorry, madam,” he said, after a little while, which seemed like half an hour to Honora, “but they’ve had a fire in the Kingston exchange, and the Quicksands line is out of order.”

Honora’s heart sank; but the bell-boy had reappeared.  Yes, Mrs. Holt was in.

“Take me to her room,” she said, and followed him into the elevator.

In response to his knock the door was opened by Mrs. Holt herself.  She wore a dove-coloured gown, and in her hand was a copy of the report of the Board of Missions.  For a moment she peered at Honora over the glasses lightly poised on the uncertain rim of her nose.

“Why—­my dear!” she exclaimed, in astonishment.  Honora!”

“Oh,” cried Honora, “I’m so glad you’re here.  I was so afraid you’d be out.”

In the embrace that followed both the glasses and the mission report fell to the floor.  Honora picked them up.

“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?”