Goes about a great deal. Her mother was on the stage. Married a
wealthy wholesale corset-maker."
"Who did? Miss April?" Edward Henry had a twinge.
"No. Her mother. Both parents dead, and Miss April has an income--a
considerable income."
"What do you call considerable?"
"Five or six thousand a year."
"The deuce!" murmured Edward Henry.
"May have lost a bit of it, of course," Mr. Marrier hedged. "But not
much, not much!"
"Well," said Edward Henry, smiling, "what about _my_ tea? Am I to have
tea all by myself?"
"Will you come down and meet her?" Mr. Marrier's expression approached
the wistful.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "it's an idea, isn't it? Why should I be
the only person in London who doesn't know Miss Elsie April?"
It was ten minutes past four when they descended into the electric
publicity of the Grand Babylon. Amid the music and the rattle of
crockery and the gliding waiters and the large nodding hats that
gathered more and more thickly round the tables, there was no sign of
Elsie April.
"She may have been and gone away again," said Edward Henry,
apprehensive.
"Oh, no! She wouldn't go away." Mr. Marrier was positive.
In the tone of a man with an income of two hundred pounds a week he
ordered a table to be prepared for three.
At ten minutes to five he said:
"I hope she _hasn't_ been and gone away again!"
Edward Henry began to be gloomy and resentful.
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