“Can’t you put it off?” Miss Arden said, rather snappily. “You really can’t go and choose Elizabeth’s frocks. It’s hardly a man’s sphere.”

Lawrence began to feel very guilty, but he brazened it out.

“Rubbish, Anne! After all, I am her father. But I’m sorry you can’t come. Too stupid of me. I can’t think how I could have forgotten this was your Mothers’ day. I suppose you couldn’t desert the meeting for once?”

“It’s most annoying,” said Miss Arden. “Of course I might send a note to Mrs. Hemingway ...” She considered, drumming her fingers on the table.

Both Elizabeth and her father sat quiet, watching her, and trying not to hope that she wouldn’t come. Elizabeth looked mournful; Lawrence was anxious.

“No, I can’t possibly cut the meeting,” Miss Arden said at last. “It’s a pity you didn’t tell me before.”

“It only just occurred to me to-day,” Lawrence explained, “or of course I should have.”

Miss Arden was hurt; you could see it in her face; hurt and cross.

“Perhaps we could put it off,” Elizabeth suggested.

Lawrence thought that was unnecessary of Elizabeth. He shook his head sadly.

“I’m afraid not. I shall be tied to the office all the rest of the week. This is really my one free day.” He thought perhaps this sounded too ungracious. “Never mind about the meeting, Anne. I’m sure the Mothers can spare you.”

Elizabeth wished that Father were not so anxious that Aunt Anne should accompany them, but she choked the wish down, and said, “Do come, Auntie.”

But Miss Arden refused. She went away to the meeting, martyr-like, and Elizabeth felt a dreadful joy at seeing her go.

Home was in a tidy backwater of Kensington, called The Boltons; Lawrence hailed a taxi chunking up the road, and put Elizabeth into it.

“It was a pity your aunt couldn’t come,” he remarked as he got in beside Elizabeth.

“Yes, wasn’t it?” she agreed.

“Though I’m not at all sure she wouldn’t have been too tired,” he went on. “One has to be careful that she doesn’t overdo it, you know. We probably shan’t be back till dinner-time. I shouldn’t have liked to feel that we were dragging her about till that hour.”

Elizabeth thought that he could not know Aunt Anne very well if he imagined that she would be tired after one afternoon’s shopping. A faint suspicion dawned in her mind that Father was talking like this simply to salve his conscience. She banished the suspicion and thought that after all there was some truth in what he said. Aunt Anne was too eager to sacrifice herself to others. She told Lawrence this, and he was pleased with her, and said that she had hit the nail on the head.