"It will interest you deeply, I am sure." And she looked into the fire. "Antony stayed with you, did he not?"

"Yes," I said, and my voice sounded strained, remembering that terrible visit.

She was silent for a few moments.

"I want you to be friends with me, dear," she said, so gently. "You are, perhaps, not always quite happy, and if ever I can do anything for you I want you to know I will."

"Oh, dear Lady Tilchester," I said, "you have been so kind and good to me already I shall never forget it. And I am a stranger, too, and yet you have troubled about me."

"I liked you from the first moment we met, at the Tilchester ball.

And Antony is so interested in you, and we are such dear old friends I should always be prejudiced in favor of any one he thought worth liking."

There were numbers of things I wished to ask her, but somehow my tongue felt tied. It was almost a relief when she turned the conversation.

Soon the daylight faded and the servants brought lamps.

"It is almost five," she said, at last "What a happy afternoon we have had! I know you ever so much better now, dear. Well, I suppose the time has come to put on tea-gowns and descend to see how affairs are progressing."

I rose.

"I am going to call you Ambrosine," she said, and she kissed me. "I am not given to sudden friendships, but there is something about your eyes that touches me. Oh, dear, I hope fate will not force you to commit some mid-summer madness, as I did, to regret to the end of your days!"

All the way to my room her words puzzled me. What could she mean?

XII

The scene was picturesque and pretty as I looked at it from the gallery that crosses the hall.

Tea was laid out on a large, low table, with plates and jam and cakes and m.u.f.fins--a nice, comfortable, substantial meal. A fire of whole logs burned in the colossal, open chimney. The huge, heavily shaded lamps concentrated all the light beneath them, viewed from above.

And like a group of summer-flowers the women, in their light and fluffy tea-gowns, added the touch of grace to the heavy darkness of the old stone walls. I paused a while and watched them.

Lady Grenellen, gorgeous as a sultana, seemed to have collected all the cushions to enhance her comfort as she lay back in a low, deep sofa. Augustus sat beside her. From here one could not see his ugliness, and the dark claret color of his smoking-suit rather set off her gown. She had the most alluring expression upon her face, which just caught the light. His att.i.tude was humble. The storm, for the present, was over between them.

Two other women, the heiress, Babykins, and Lord Tilchester, and several young men sat round the table like children eating their bread-and-jam.

The Duke and Miss Martina B. Cadwallader were examining the armor.

Some one was playing the piano softly. Merry laughter floated upward.

I doubt if any other country could produce such a scene. It would have pleased grandmamma.

"Why, by the stars and stripes, there is a ghost in the gallery!"

exclaimed Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet, pointing to me. The faint glimmer of my white velvet tea-gown must have caught her eyes as I moved away.

"No, I am not a ghost," I called, "and I am coming down to eat hot m.u.f.fins." So I crossed and descended the turret stairs.

Lady Tilchester had not appeared yet.

I sat down at the table next "Billy." It was all so gay and friendly no one could feel depressed.

Viewed close, Miss Trumpet was, for her age, too splendidly attired.

She looked prettier in her simple travelling-dress. But her spirits and her repartee left nothing to be desired. She kept us all amused, and, whether Lady Grenellen would eventually permit it or no, Lord Luffton seemed immensely _epris_ with her now.

There was only one other girl at the table, Lady Agatha de Champion, and her slouching, stooping figure and fuzzled hair did not show to advantage beside the heiress's upright, rounded shape and well-brushed waves.

"Where have you been all the afternoon?" demanded the Duke, reproachfully, over my shoulder. "I searched everywhere down-stairs, and finally sent to your room, but your maid knew nothing of you."

"I have been sitting with Lady Tilchester in her sitting-room," I said, smiling.

"Here comes Margaret. She shall answer to me for kidnapping my guests like this." And he went forward to meet her.

"Do not scold me," said Lady Tilchester, as she returned with him.

"I think Mrs. Gurrage will tell you we have spent a very pleasant afternoon."

"Indeed, yes," I said.

"And I mean to spend a pleasant evening," he whispered, low, to me.

"As soon as you have eaten that horrid m.u.f.fin I shall carry you off to see my pictures."

I looked at Lady Tilchester. What would she wish me to do?

"Impress upon him the necessity of being charming to the heiress.

You were quite right. He has a serious rival," she whispered, and we walked off.

The Duke can be agreeable in his unattractive, lackadaisical way.

He is so full of information, not of the statistical kind like Miss Trumpet, but the result of immense cultivation.

"What do you think of my heiress?" he said, at last, as we paused beneath a Tintoretto. I said everything suitable and encouraging I could think of.

"I am quite pleased with her," he allowed, "but I fear she will not be content with the role I had planned out for my d.u.c.h.ess. She is too individual. I feel it is I who would subside and attend to the nurseries and the spring cleaning. However, I mean to go through with it, although I am in a hideous position, because, you know, I am falling very deeply in love with you."

"How inconvenient for you!"' I said, smiling. "But please do not let that interfere with your prospects. You must attend to the subject of pleasing the heiress, as I see great signs of Lord Luffton cutting the ground from under your feet."

He stared at me incredulously.

"Luffy!" he said, aghast. "Oh, but Cordelia would take care of that.

He is her friend."

"Oh, how you amuse me, all of you," I said, laughing, "with your loves and your jealousies and your little arrangements! Every one two and two; every one with a 'friend.'"

"Anyway, we are not wearyingly faithful."

"No; but to a stranger you ought to issue a kind of guide-book--'Trespa.s.sers will be prosecuted' here, 'A change would be welcomed' there, etc."

"'Pon my word new editions would have to come out every three months, then. In the s.p.a.ce of a year you would find a general shuffle had taken place."