Wild Margaret

"Oh, you'll never get it off like that," said Margaret impatiently, and innocently enough her small supple fingers flew at it.

His own hand and hers touched, and with a feeling of surprise he felt the blood tingling at her touch. He looked at the lovely face so close to his own, so gravely, unconsciously beautiful, and a wild desire to lift the hand to his lips seized him, but with a mighty effort he forced it down.

"There it is!" he said. "And now to reward me for – not getting it undone, will you let me give you this flower?" and he stooped and picked a red rose.

Margaret started slightly and looked at him; but the handsome face wore its frankest, "goodest" look, and with a laugh she held out her hand. He drew it back with an answering laugh.

"Before I give it to you, will you tell me one thing, Miss Hale?"

"That depends," she said, "upon what the thing is."

"It's not much," he said. "Only this: will you tell me that you don't think I am quite the savage you accused me of being yesterday?"

She looked up at him with a faint color in her face.

"Yes, I will do that," she said. "But I think you should keep the rose, Lord Leyton."

"No," he said, laughingly, but with an intent look in his eyes, fixed upon her. "No, I've got a fancy for leaving something behind me that you may remember me by. I'm going to-morrow, you know."

"I did not know," said Margaret.

"Yes," with a sigh. "My welcome to the Court is soon outworn, and I'm back to London and the old road," with a laugh.

Margaret stood with averted face.

"Is – is it so inevitable, that same road? Is there no other, my lord?" she said.

"No, I'm afraid not, my lady," he said, smiling, but rather gravely.

"I think there must be, that there might be if you cared to take it," she said, gravely.

"If you cared that I should take it – I mean" – he broke off quickly, for she had looked alarmed at his words and their tone – "I mean that it's very good of you to care what becomes of a useless fellow like me, and – "

"Margaret!" called Mrs. Hale's voice from the open window.

Margaret started.

"Good-night, my lord," she said, hurriedly, and yet with simple dignity.

"Stop," he said, in a low voice; "you have forgotten your rose," and, following her a step or two, he touched her arm. "It is not a very grand one; there was a bowl of beauties in my room: some good soul had pick – " he stopped, for the color rose to Margaret's face. "You put them there!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "You!"

"I – I did not know – " she said, faltering, and trying to speak proudly.

"Oh, don't destroy my pleasure by explaining that you did not mean them for me!" he pleaded. "You put them there at any rate. Will you let me, in return, fix this rose in your shawl? We shall be more than quits then on my side!"

Oh, Margaret, put back the proffered flower! Red stands in the language of magic for all that is evil, for a passion that will burn into ashes of pain; put back the hand that offers it to you!

But he was too quick. Gently, reverently he fixed the rose in the meshes of the antimacassar, and, as he put it straight with a caressing touch, he murmured:

"Good-night! Try and remember me, Miss – Margaret, at any rate as long as the rose lives!"

Red as the flower itself, trembling with a feeling that was painfully like the stab of conscience, Margaret glanced up at him, and without a word, sped from his side.

Lord Leyton stood looking after her, as strange an expression in his face as her own had worn.

Then with a long sigh he went back to the seat and threw himself down into it, in the place where she had sat.

Half an hour passed; the nightingale for which Margaret had been waiting came out and sang for him; but the song gave him no delight, for in his whirling brain its notes seemed to take the shape of words: words of such sad, strange import! "Spare her! – spare her!" the bird seemed to sing; and as if he could not endure the appeal any longer, he rose impatiently and walked toward the terrace.

As he did so, a tall, skulking figure moved snake-like after him.

Lord Blair stopped at the bottom of the steps, and the shadow pursuing him stopped also, and raised a heavy stick.

For a moment it hovered evilly over Lord Blair's head, then, as if smitten by a sudden remorse or a desire for a still deeper revenge, Pyke let the stick fall, and, slinking back, disappeared amongst the shrubs.

CHAPTER VI

Margaret ran into the house, her heart beating fast, the color coming and going in her cheeks. To her amazement and annoyance, she felt that she was actually trembling! Well, if not trembling, quivering, as a leaf quivers when the summer wind passes over its bosom.

What was this that she had done? Notwithstanding her grandmother's warning and her own good resolutions, she had spent – how long! – nearly an hour talking alone with Lord Blair Leyton. And he had given her a rose! Not only given it to her, but fastened it in the antimacassar.

She could feel his fingers touching her still, as it seemed to her! She looked down at the rose, gleaming like a spot of blood on the white cotton of the antimacassar, then, with a sudden gesture, she went to pull it out and fling it through the window; but she averted her hand even as it touched the velvet leaves. Yes, she had done wrong; she ought not to have spoken to him, ought not to have remained with him, and most certainly ought not to have taken the rose from him.

She saw now how wrong she had been. They used to call her "Wild Margaret," "Mad Madge," when she was a child, but she had been trying to become quiet, and dignified, and discreet, and, as it seemed to her, had succeeded, until this wicked young man had tempted her into flirting – was it flirting? – in the starlight.

"You look flushed, my dear," said Mrs. Hale. "Are you tired?"

"I think I am a little," said Margaret, longing to get to the solitude of her own room.

"It's the country air," said the old lady, nodding. "It always makes people from London sleepy. Was it pleasant in the garden?" she added, innocently.

Margaret's face flushed.

"Y – es, very," she replied; then she was going on to tell the old lady of her meeting with Lord Blair, but stopped short.

"I think I will go up to bed now," she said, and giving the old lady a kiss, she went up-stairs to her own room. There she thought over every word that the young lord said, and that she herself had spoken. There had been no harm in any of it, surely! He had spoken respectfully, almost reverentially, and even when he had given her the rose he had done it with as much diffidence and high bred courtesy as if she had been a countess. Surely there had been no harm in it.

It was a lovely morning when she woke, and dressing herself she went straight to the picture gallery. As she left the room Lord Blair's red rose seemed to smile at her from the dressing table, and she took it up and carried it in her hand. It was just possible that she might meet him; if so, it would be as well to have the rose with her, for give it back she meant to, if a chance afforded. The light in the gallery could not have been better, and she set to work at first languidly, but presently with more spirit, and was becoming perfectly absorbed, when she heard a voice singing the refrain of the last popular London song.

It was a man's voice, it could be no other than Lord Blair's, and in a minute or two afterward she heard him enter the gallery.

She heard him coming toward her with a quick step, and looking up with his eyes fixed upon her with eager pleasure. He was dressed in the suit of tweeds in which he had looked so picturesque on the morning of the fight, and in his buttonhole he wore a white rose. It drew her eyes toward it, and she knew it at once – it was the finest of the roses she had placed in his room.

"Miss Hale!" he exclaimed, holding out his hand, while his eyes beamed with the frank, glad light of youth when it is pleased. "This is luck! I only strolled in here by mere chance – and – and to think of my finding you here! How early you are! And what a lot you have done!" staring admiringly at the canvas. "I hope you didn't catch cold last night?"

"No, my lord," said Margaret, as coldly as if her voice were frozen.

He looked at her with a quick questioning.

"I'm off almost directly," he said, with something like a sigh. "It's a bore having to go back to London and leave this place a morning like this. I had no idea it was so – so jolly, until – " he stopped; he was going to add: "until last night."

Margaret remained silent, dabbing on little spots of color delicately.

"I quite envy you your stay here," he went on, looking in her grave face, which had become somewhat pale since his arrival. "That jolly little garden, and – and this grand gallery. I hope you will be happy, and – and enjoy yourself."

"Thank you my lord," coldly as before.

He looked at her with a slightly puzzled frown.

"Yes, I should like to stay; but I can't – for the best of all reasons, I haven't been invited, don't you know."

Margaret said nothing, but carefully mixed some colors on her palette.

"And so – and so I'm off," he said, with a sudden sigh. "Perhaps we shall meet in London, Miss Hale."

"It is not likely," said Margaret gravely.

"So you said last night," he responded; "but I shall live in hopes. Yes. London's only a little place, after all, you know, and – and we may meet. Well, I'll say good-bye!"

"Good-bye, my lord," she said, affecting not to see his outstretched hand.

"Won't you shake hands?" he said with a laugh, which died away as she took up the rose and placed it in his extended palm.

"Will you take back this flower, my lord?" she said quietly, but with a trembling quiver on her lips.

"Take back?" he stammered. "Take back the rose I gave you last night!" he went on with astonishment. "Why? what have I done to offend you?" and he stared from the rose to her face.

"You have done nothing to offend me, my lord," said Margaret quickly, and with a vivid blush, which angered her beyond expression. "Nothing whatever, but – "

"But – well?" he said as she paused.

"But," she went on, lifting her eyes to his bravely – "but I do not think I ought to take a flower from you, my lord."

"Good lord, why not?" he demanded, with not unreasonable astonishment.

Margaret looked down. But she was no coward.

"I will say more than that," she said in a low but steady voice. "I ought not to have remained in the garden with you last night, Lord Leyton. I thought so last night, I am sure of it now. And if I ought not to have stayed talking with you, I certainly ought not to have accepted a flower from you! I beg your pardon, and – there is your rose!"

A look of pain crossed his handsome face.

"You haven't told me why yet," he said, after a pause.

Margaret bit her lip, and was silent for a second or two, then she said:

"Lord Leyton, there should be, can be, no acquaintance between you and me – "

"Now stop!" he said. "I know what you are going to say; you are going to talk some nonsense about my being a viscount and you being something different, and all that! As if you were not a lady, and as if any one could be better than that! Yes, they can, by George! and you are better, for you are an artist! A difference between us – yes, yes, I should think there was, between a useless fellow like myself and a clever, beautiful – "

"My lord!" said Margaret, flushing, then looking at him with her brows drawn together.

"I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; I do indeed! But, all the same," he said, defiantly, "it's true! You are beautiful, but I don't rely on that. I say an artist and a lady is the equal of any man or woman alive, and if that's the reason you fling my flower back to me – "

"I didn't fling it, my lord," said Margaret, gravely.

"I'm a brute!" he said, penitently. "The difference between a brute and – and an angel! That's it. No, you didn't fling it, but it's just as if you had, isn't it now?"

"You will take back the flower, Lord Leyton, please?" she almost pleaded. "I don't want to fling it, as you say, out of the window."

He stood looking at her.

"How – how you must hate and despise me, by Jove!" he said.

Margaret flushed.

"You have no right to say that, my lord, because I see that I acted unwisely last night. How can I hate or despise one who is a stranger to me?"

"Yes, that's it; I'm a stranger, and you mean to keep me one!" he said, half bitterly, half sorrowfully. "Well, I can't complain; I'm not fit for you to know. Why, even my own flesh and blood are anxious to see the back of me! Yes, you are right, Miss Margaret."

He dwelt on the name sadly, using it unconsciously.

"Oh, no, no!" she said, wrung to the heart at the thought of wounding him so mercilessly. "It's not that! It's not of you I thought, but of myself."

"Of yourself yes," he said. "Communication with me is a kind of pollution; you cannot touch tar, you know! Oh, I understand! Well" – he hung his head – "I'll do as you tell me; I can't do less. I'll take my poor rose – " He stopped short, and something seemed to strike him. "But if I do, I must return you this," and he gently unfastened the white one from his coat, and held it out to her.

Margaret put out her hand irresolutely.

"Oh, take it!" he said recklessly. "It is one out of the bowl you gave me."

"I gave you?" she said.

"Yes," he said; "you picked them yourself, the girl told me so. I asked her. And you put them in my room. If I take your rose back you must take mine."

"Well," she said, and she took it slowly, and laid it on the table beside her.

He drew a long breath, then the color came into his face and the wild, daring Ferrers' spirit shone in his eyes.

"That's an exchange," he said. "It's a challenge and an acceptance. Don't you see what you have done in cutting me off and flinging me aside, Miss Margaret?"

"What have I done?" said Margaret.

"Yes! You have given me back my rose, but you forget that you have worn it, that it has been in your dress, that you have touched it, that it's like a part of yourself. And you have taken my rose, which has been in my room all night, while I dreamt of you – "

"Lord Leyton!" she panted, half rising.

"Yes!" he said, confronting her with the sudden passion which lay dormant in him and always, like a tiger, ready to spring to the surface. "You can throw my offer of friendship in my face, you can put me coldly aside, and – and wipe out last night as if it had never been, as if you had done some great wrong in talking to such a man as I am; but you can't rob me of the rose you have touched, ah! and worn."

"Give – give it me back!" she exclaimed, with a trepidation which was not altogether anger or fear. "Give it me back, my lord. You have no right – "

"To keep it! Haven't I?" he retorted. "What! when you forced it back on me! No, I will not give it you back! You may do what you like with the white one. You will fling it on the fire, I've no doubt. I can't help it. But this one, yours, I keep! It is mine. I will never part with it. And whenever I look at it I will remember how – until you discovered that I was not fit to associate with you, such a bad lot that you couldn't even keep a flower I gave you! – I'll remember that you have worn it near your heart."

White as herself, with a passion which had carried him beyond all bounds, he raised the red rose to his lips and kissed it, not once only but thrice.

Then, as he saw her face change, her lips tremble, his passion melted away, and all penitent and remorseful, he bent toward her.

"Forgive me!" he said, as if half bewildered; "I – I didn't know what I was saying. I – I am a savage! Yes, that's the name for me! Forgive me, and – good-bye!"

He lingered on the words till they seemed to fill the room with their music, low as they had been spoken. Then he turned.

Margaret found her voice.

"My lord – Lord Leyton. Stop!"

He stopped and turned.

"Give me back the rose, please," she said, firmly.

"No!" he said, his eyes flashing again. "Nothing in this world would induce me to give it to you, or to any one else. I'll keep it till I die! I'll keep it to remind me of last night – and of you!"

He stood for a moment looking at her steadily – if the passionate glance could be called steady; then the thick folds of the velvet curtain fell and hid him from her sight.

Margaret stood for a moment motionless.

Lord Leyton strode through the corridor into the hall. He scarcely knew where he was going, or saw the objects before him.

"The dog-cart is ready, my lord," said a footman.

Mr. Stibbings stood with respectful attention beside the door.

"Good-morning, my lord; the portmanteau is in – " he glanced at the rose which Lord Blair still held in his hand. "If your lordship would like to take some flowers with you, I will get some: there is time – "

"Flowers? Flowers?" said Lord Blair, confusedly; then, with an exclamation, he hid the rose in his breast and sprung into the cart.

The horse bounded forward and dashed down the avenue, Lord Blair looking straight before him like a man only half awakened.

Suddenly, seeing and yet scarcely seeing, he noticed a tall, wiry figure lounging against the sign-post in the center of the village green.

"Stop!" he said to the groom.

He pulled up and Lord Blair beckoned to the man.

Pyke resisted the summons for a second or two, then he slouched up to the dog-cart with his hands in his pockets.

"Good-morning, my man," said Lord Blair. "I hope you're none the worse for our little set-to?"

"I'm not the worse, and I sha'n't be," retorted Pyke, lifting his evil eyes for a moment to the handsome face then fixing them on the last button of Lord Blair's waistcoat.

"That's all right," said Lord Blair. "I see you've got a bruise or two still left," and he laughed. "And I dare say I have. Well, here is some ointment for yours," and he held out some silver.

Pyke opened his hand, and his fingers closed over it.

"That's all right," said Blair again, cheerfully. "We part friends, I hope?"

"Yes, we part friends," said Pyke, but the expression of his face would have suited "We part enemies" equally well.

"Well, we shall meet again, I dare say," said Blair. "Good-morning."

"Yes, we shall meet again," said the man, and as he spoke he shot a vindictive glance at Blair's face. "Oh, yes, my lord, we shall meet again," he snarled as the dog-cart drove on. "And it will be my turn then. Ointment, eh! It will be a powerful ointment as 'ud do you any good when I've done with you!"

CHAPTER VII

About four o'clock the same evening a group of people was gathered round a young lady who sat on a magnificent and strong-looking horse, standing with well-bred patience near the rails of the Mile.

The park was crammed, carriages, riders, and pedestrians all massed and hot, in the lovely June air, which seemed laden with the scent of the flowers, and heavy with the sound of wheels and voices.

The lady was young, but certainly not beautiful. That you decided at once, immediately you saw her. After a time, when you got to know her, your decision became somewhat shaken, and you would very likely admit that if she were not beautiful, she was, well – taking. She was not tall – short indeed, one of those small women who make us inclined to believe that all women should be small; one of those little women who twist great men – and great in all senses of the word – round their very diminutive little fingers. She had a beautiful figure, petite, fairy-like, lithesome and graceful, and it looked at its very best in the brown habit of Redfern's make. Her hair was black, her eyes gray, and her mouth – well, it was not small, but it was wonderfully expressive.

She was the center of a group. There were other young ladies with her, but she was distinctly the center, and the men who crowded round bent their eyes upon her, addressed most of their remarks to her, and, in fact, paid her the most attention: the other ladies did not seem to complain even silently; they took it as a matter of course.

For this little lady, with the not small but expressive mouth, was Miss Violet Graham, and she was, perhaps, the richest heiress in London.

There were several well-known men in the circle round her. There was the young Marquis of Aldmere, with the pink eyes and the receding chin of his race, his pink eyes fixed admiringly upon the small, alert face as he fingered the beginning of a very pale mustache.

Next him, and leaning on the rails so that he nearly touched her skirt, was Captain Floyd, otherwise the Mad Dragoon, as handsome as Apollo, as reckless as only an Irish dragoon can be, and as cool as a cucumber till the red pepper is applied.

Near to him was young Lord Chichester, who had just married a very charming young woman, but who still found it impossible to pass any group of which Violet Graham was the center. There was several others – a Member of Parliament, a well-known barrister, and a curate who happened just then to be the fashion – and, although there were a great many of them "all at once," Violet Graham seemed quite able to keep the whole team in hand. And while she talked, the small, keen eyes were taking in the features of the procession which passed and repulsed her.

"There goes the duchess," said Captain Floyd, raising his hat, as a stout lady, in a handsome equipage, inclined her head toward them. "Looks very jolly, considering that she has lost so much money, and that the duke is supposed to have left her."

"She puts her gain against her loss, don't you see," said Violet Graham quickly.

There was an applausive laugh, of course.

"And here comes the new bishop. Why do bishops always have such awfully plain wives, Miss Graham?" murmured Lord Chichester.

"That they may not be too proud, like some of us," she said, promptly.

Charlie Chichester's wife was good looking. He blushed.

"You are harder than ever, this afternoon, Miss Graham," he said.

"Or is it that you are softer?" she retorted.

The ready laugh rang out.

"Tremendous lot of people," said the dragoon, languidly; "it makes one long for a desert island all to one's self."

"Any island would be a desert which contained Captain Floyd," she said.

"I don't see the point," he said, looking up at her languidly.

"Because you would soon quarrel with and kill anyone else who happened to be living there," she retorted.

"That's right, Miss Graham," exclaimed Lord Chichester, cheering up. "Give him one or two lunges; he's far too conceited, and wants taking down."

"I wonder where Blair is?" said the captain, and he looked at Miss Violet, but whether intentionally or not could not be said. If there was any significance in his glance she did not betray herself by the movement of an eyelash.

"Oh, Blair?" said the marquis; "he's off into the country somewhere. Come a dreadful cropper over Daylight, you know. Think he's gone to raise the tin; don't know, of course."

"Of course!" assented Miss Graham, smiling down upon him.

He was known as "Sublime Ignorance."

"One for you, Aldy," chorused Chichester. "But, seriously, where is Blair? He went off without a word, don't you know, let me see, two days ago. Perhaps he's bolted! Shouldn't wonder! He has been going it awfully rapidly lately, don't you know. Poor old Blair!"

For once Miss Graham seemed to have no repartee ready. She sat looking straight between her horse's ears, her eyes still and placid, her lips set.

Then she looked round them with a smile.

"Well, I can't stay chattering with you any longer."

"Oh, give us another minute," pleaded Lord Chichester. "It's too hot for riding."

"And far too hot for talking," she put in. "I must be off! Are you coming, girls?"

As she spoke the two girls who were with her, and who had been talking with some of the men, obediently – everybody obeyed Violet Graham – gathered up their reins, a horseman rode slowly up, and bringing his horse to a stand close beside Violet Graham's, raised his hat.

He was a tall, fine-looking man, thin and not badly made, but there was something in his face which did not prepossess one. Perhaps it was because the lips were too thin and under control, or the eyes too close together, or perhaps it was the expression of steadfast determination which lent a certain coldness and hardness to the clear-cut features.

"Ah, Austin, how do you do?" said Miss Graham, with the easy carelessness of an intimate friend, but as she spoke her eyes seemed to seek his face, and finding something there, dropped to her horse's ears.

He answered her salutation in a low, clear voice – almost too cold and grave for so young and handsome a man, and exchanged greetings with the rest. Then, without looking at her, he said:

"Are you riding on?"

"Yes," she said. "We were just starting. Good-bye!" and with a wave of her hand to her circle of courtiers, she rode on, Austin Ambrose close by her side.

"How I hate that fellow!" murmured the dragoon, languidly, looking after them.

"Hear, hear," said Lord Chichester.

"And yet he isn't a bad fellow – what's the matter with him?" stammered the marquis.

"Don't know," murmured Captain Floyd. "'I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, the reason why I cannot tell – '"

"Who's Dr. Fell?" asked the marquis, with a bewildered stare.

A shout of laughter greeted his question.

"Look here, Sublime Ignorance," said the dragoon, with a wearied smile, "you are too good for this world. Such a complete lack of brains and ordinary intelligence are utterly wasted on this sublunary sphere."

"Oh, bother!" grunted the peer. "I never heard of any Dr. Fell, how should I? But what's the matter with Ambrose?"

"I don't know," said Lord Chichester, thoughtfully. "I think it's that smile of his, that superior smile, that makes you long to kick him; or is it the way in which he looks just over the top of your head?"

"Or is it because Miss Graham is such a special friend of his that he can take her away from all the rest of us put together?" murmured the captain.

"Oh, there is nothing on there," said Lord Chichester. "My wife – and she ought to know, don't you know – stoutly denies it."

"I didn't say there was anything between them. If there was, that would be sufficient reason for all of us hating him – barring you, Charlie, who are out of the hunt now."

"You don't hate Blair?" said Chichester, thoughtfully.

"Well, there is nothing between him and her; now, at any rate; and if there were we shouldn't hate him."

"Fancy hating old Blair!" exclaimed the marquis.

There was a general smile of assent at the exclamation.

"Best fellow alive!" said Chichester. "Poor old chappie; he's dreadfully down on his luck just at present."

"Oh, he'll come up to time all right!" broke in the dragoon. "You never find Blair knocked under for long. He'll come up smiling presently. Always falls on his legs, thank goodness. By the way," he said, more thoughtfully than was his wont, "it's rather rum how he and that fellow Ambrose get on so well together."

"Oh, Blair could get on with any one – Old Nick himself!" exclaimed Chichester, and amidst the general laugh the group melted and passed on with the crowd.

Miss Violet Graham rode on in silence for a moment or two, then she said, in an undertone:

"Have you seen him? Where is he?"

Austin Ambrose cast a cold glance of warning toward the others, and with a little gesture of impatience Violet Graham answered it.

"You are right. Come in to tea, will you?"

"Thanks," he said aloud. "I will leave you now," he added, as they reached the gates; "I will be round as soon as I have put the horse in."

Violet Graham nodded, and immediately joined in conversation with the people near her, and with her usual vivacity exchanged greetings and rapid exclamations with the people who rode or drove by. It seemed as if she knew and was known of everybody!

But presently she pulled up.

"Well, girls, I'm tired out. It really is too hot for any more of it. Any of you come home to tea with me?"

They knew by the way the invitation was given that they were not wanted, and of course declined, and Miss Graham, turning her horse, rode pretty smartly, hot as it was, toward the gate.

In a few minutes she was in her house in Park Lane.

It was one of the largest houses in the lane, and the appointments were of a magnificence suitable to the richest lady in London.

The hall she entered, though not so large as those in country mansions, was superbly decorated and lined with choice exotics. Statuary, white as the driven snow, gleamed against the mosaic walls. Plush had given place to Indian muslin for the summer months, and the white place looked like an Oriental or a Grecian dream.

"I am out to everyone but Mr. Ambrose," she said to the footman who attended her, and passing by the drawing-room, she ascended the stairs and entered a really beautiful apartment, which, as she reserved it for herself, might be called her boudoir.

She shut the door and dropped on a couch, flinging her hat on a table and feverishly tugging at her gauntlets. Then she rose and began pacing the room. And all the time she looked as anxious as a woman could look.

Presently the door opened, and a servant announced Mr. Ambrose.

"Bring some tea," she said, "and show Mr. Ambrose in."

He came in, cool, self-possessed, bringing with him, as it seemed, a breath of cold air.

Just glancing at her, he put down his hat and whip, and seating himself in one of the delightfully easy chairs, leant back and looked at her from under his lids.

It was a peculiar look, critical, analytical; it was the look a surgeon bends on a patient who is a curious and, perhaps, difficult case.

"Well?" she said, sinking into a chair and fidgeting with the handle of her whip.

The footman entered with the tea-tray, and Austin Ambrose, instead of answering, said:

"No sugar in mine, please."

She poured him out a cup with not too carefully concealed impatience, and as he rose and fetched it, taking it leisurely back to his chair, she beat a tattoo on the ground with her small feet.

"How tiresomely slow you can be when you like," she said. "I believe you do it to – to exasperate me."

"Why should I exasperate you?" he responded calmly, coolly. "Are you angry with me because I would not speak before the women who were with us in the park, or before the servant here; it is a question which of them would chatter most."