"Oh, haven't you?" queried Mrs. Lancing, in a tone of very real astonishment. "Why, I have had it _ages_; got it at a Veronique sale.

It was absurdly cheap."

She told these various untruths quite glibly, and then made haste to get away from the subject.

She was not a little afraid of Mrs. Brenton at times, although, indeed, she would have been singularly ungrateful--and Camilla was never ungrateful--if she had not realized that in this old friend--one who had known her when she was a mere child--she had a staunch and a loving ally--a friend who in sickness and in health gave her almost an anxious affection, and whose curiosity to know what was pa.s.sing with her arose from the best motives. But Camilla always dreaded being compelled to answer questions, or having to give an account of herself; she was so weary of having good advice given her.

Of what use, so she argued to herself, would it be to let Agnes know how worried she was, and into what a hopeless muddle her pretty feet had strayed?

"Agnes cannot help me," she said to herself; "and she would only worry and think the end of all things had come if I were to tell her how I stand just now. And then she would scold, and talk about the future solemnly, and oh! I know I should scream if she started the old discussion to-night; my nerves are all on wires! If she _could_ help me it would be another matter, but I suppose a five-pound note would be about the utmost poor old Agnes could produce in an emergency." And Camilla shrugged her shoulders. Just before leaving town for Yelverton she had spent her last available five pounds at a hair-dresser's, while, at the same time, a writ for the sables she had worn so becomingly that day had been sent to her by registered post that morning.

She threw off her hat and veil.

"I am rather anxious, Agnes," she said. "I have had no letter from nurse to-day."

Mrs. Brenton took the bait instantly.

"Anxious? What about? There is no need to fuss yourself; nurse never does write freely."

"She promised faithfully to send me word every day," said Mrs. Lancing, half fretfully.

"Well, look here, I'll go and telephone through for you," said the other woman; "with just a little luck I shall find the line clear. The rush is off about this time, as a rule."

Mrs. Lancing had slipped from her outdoor clothes into a very pretty dressing-gown by the time the telephone conversation was at an end.

"Everything is all right," Mrs. Brenton announced cheerily. "The children are just gone to bed. They have been very good, and are quite well."

"I miss them dreadfully," said Camilla, and her voice broke a little.

Turning, she picked up two photographs that were on the dressing-table and kissed them pa.s.sionately.

"Miss them!" said Mrs. Brenton in her brisk way, "I should think you did! Dear little souls, I can't think why on earth you didn't bring them with you; there is heaps of room, and children are never a bother to me, as you know. Well, now I'll trot away again. I expect you feel thoroughly tired out, Camilla. Dinner will be half an hour late, so you can take it easy. Why don't you have forty winks? That is a heavenly chair for a snooze."

Mrs. Lancing was already crouched up in the luxurious depths of the chintz-covered chair. She yawned as she cuddled into the cushions.

"Fancy Sammy Broxbourne turning up so suddenly. Why didn't you tell me he was coming, Agnes?" she asked, a little jerkily.

"Because I did not know it myself. He wired this morning to ask if he could run down for a day or two, and as I was not here d.i.c.k answered for me, saying, of course, he could come. I can't say that I think he is much improved, and he has put on a lot of flesh. He used to be rather a pretty boy, and now he is only a commonplace and very vulgar young man. By the way, how did he and Rupert Haverford get on?"

inquired Mrs. Brenton, a little abruptly. She had made a move towards the door, and now turned back again.

Camilla Lancing shrugged her shoulders.

"A very clear case of hatred at first sight! The moral Haverford sat in a corner and scowled in silence, and, of course, Sammy used all the swear words he knows just on purpose to make things pleasant."

Mrs. Brenton compressed her lips; there was definite disappointment in her eyes.

She stood a moment as if she had something more she would have liked to say; then with an imperceptible shrug of her shoulders she turned away, and, with another command to Camilla to rest went out of the room.

Mrs. Lancing nestled herself more closely into the big chair and shut her eyes. Just as the maid was stealing softly away she called the woman back.

"Don't go downstairs, Dennis," she said, "but stay in the dressing-room. I am going to try and sleep, but I may want you."

It was a relief that Agnes Brenton had gone, but she was almost afraid of being left quite alone.

Her maid took her sewing into the dressing-room, but Mrs. Lancing had no intention of going to sleep. She lay with closed eyes, however, and after awhile some tears escaped from the thick lashes and rolled down her cheeks.

"I never thought he would come back so soon," she said to herself so wearily, so miserably; "he said he would be away for ages and ages, and ... and I had almost forgotten." She turned her face on the cushions, and bit them as if a sudden physical pang had shot through her, and so she lay, breathing in a sobbing fashion for some little time; then she lifted her head and pressed her hands to her brow and to her hot eyes.

"And of _course_ this must come," she said, with fretful pa.s.sion, "when I am so worried I don't know which way to turn! Oh, how tired I am of living, sometimes! Why didn't he write to some one, then I should have heard he was coming, and I should have been prepared!"

She unpinned her hair, thick, short, brown hair, and lay back again on the cushions.

"Why doesn't Rupert Haverford speak?" she asked herself in the same fretful way, I "simply can't go on struggling and fighting in this weary way. I was never meant to struggle and fight; and is it my fault that I make mistakes? How _can_ I be different? I was brought up to be what I am. When other children were given twopence a week to put into a money-box, I was given a five-pound note to spend on dolls or make into kites. Of course I am extravagant! Of course I get into holes! I should be a living wonder if I didn't!"

She pushed the thick hair back from her brows, and, slipping from the chair, bunched herself on the hearth-rug, holding her hands before her face to shield it from the blaze.

"I won't believe he doesn't care," she said to herself, her thoughts reverting to Haverford again. "He _does_ care, only he won't speak. And he makes me so nervous. I feel as if he were looking at me through a microscope. I am sure Agnes thinks he cares!" She sighed, and shut her eyes for a moment; then her mind worked into an easier groove. "I do believe Sammy was glad to see me!" was her next thought. "He wasn't a bit changed. Perhaps I am worrying myself for nothing!" Her face lightened; the lips, the eyes grew eager. As was inevitable with her, despair began to give way slowly but surely before the invulnerable optimism of her nature. She pinned up her hair, and sat gazing into the fire, humming to herself softly while her mind pieced together a dozen different possibilities, and carried her gradually but surely away from doubt and definite fear. When the clock chimed eight she sprang to her feet.

"My black gown, Dennis," she said. She had convinced herself that Rupert Haverford would like his wife to wear black and sober colours.

In the same way she a.s.sured herself that he would read family prayers every morning. If she married him she determined that she would always breakfast in her room.

A little packet was lying on the dressing-table, and she opened it with a smile on her lips and pleasure in her eyes.

"Look, Dennis, what Mr. Haverford bought for the children! This is for Betty, and this for baby! Is it too late to send them to-night?...

Won't they be pleased? No," she decided; "I don't think I will send them. Darling hearts, they will expect me to bring them something to-morrow. Can't you see them waiting for me, Dennis?"

"They'll be in a rare state of excitement, I expect," said the maid, with a smile.

Camilla Lancing fingered the trinkets as she sat and had her hair dressed.

"He is really kind," she said to herself.

Contrasted with the other man, he had a new and great charm for her to-night--a value he had not had before.

"And though he is dull, he is certainly not vulgar," she mused on; "it is extraordinary that he should be as he is, and that Sammy should be such a vulgarian; and yet the one is a professedly middle-cla.s.s man, and the other is connected with any amount of big people. I wish I understood him a little better! But he puzzles me, and he worries me;"

she sighed here fretfully. "Of course I _must_ marry him if he asks me; yet the mere thought of living all day long in such a starchy atmosphere takes the life out of me! I thought he would have been so easy to manage when we first met! And instead of accepting our views he imposes his own. No wonder he is not popular! I only wish," said Camilla, sighing again as she got up, and looked at her pretty head critically in the mirror, "I only wish he were twenty years older, and then I would put all my troubles before him, and ask him to help me. He would help me now. I know that perfectly well, but I should lose him if I told him the truth. And I don't want to lose him. I can't lose him,"

she said a little feverishly, "especially now, especially now," she whispered.

Mrs. Lancing was one of the last down that evening--in fact, she kept the rest of the party waiting for dinner, but when she did come she was so charming and so apologetic and looked so fascinating that every one forgave her.

Sir Samuel Broxbourne took her in to dinner, and she sat where she could not see Haverford.

She could hear a little of the conversation, however, that pa.s.sed at the other end of the table, and she changed colour when she heard him tell Mrs. Brenton that he was going to town by the first train in the morning.

She translated this to mean a sudden retreat on his part. For there had been a half arrangement that he should take her back to London in his motor, and as the chauffeur had promised that the car would be at Yelverton either late that night or very early the next morning, there was no reason why this engagement should be broken. She ate the rest of her dinner in a subdued manner, and as she followed the other women out of the room she paused a moment by Haverford's side.

"So you won't motor back to-morrow?" she said hurriedly. "I am quite disappointed.... I was looking forward to it."

His face flushed.

"I am sorry," he answered, "but I must go up quite early; my mother is not well," he explained.