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His tone of scorn, his slight figure, imperiously drawn up, sent her a challenge, which she answered with sullen haste. "That's all nonsense, of course! And he wouldn't be rude to you if you weren't always rude to him." "Rude to him!" He smiled. "But now, let us get to the bottom of this thing. Did Cathedine get us the cards for Clarence House and that Goodwood invitation?" Letty made no answer.
As for her revelations about Cathedine, he felt little resentment or excitement. For the future a noxious brute had to be kept in order that was all. It was his own fault, he supposed, much more than hers. The inward voice, as before, was clear enough. "I must just take her home and be good to her. She shirked nothing now, no doubt, she expects me to do my part."
Then with an abrupt word to Lady Kent, he turned away and threw himself on a sofa beside Lord Cathedine. Lady Madeleine bent lower over her book, her beautiful hair making a spot of fire in the room. Marcella caught the expression of her profile, and her own face took a look of pain. She would have liked to go instantly to the girl's side, with some tenderness, some caress.
Poor Lady Cathedine! didn't she look a walking skeleton, with her strange, melancholy face, and every bone showing? Well, who could wonder! And when one thought of their money difficulties, too! Lady Tressady lifted her white shoulders in compassion. By this time Marcella's black eyes were wandering insistently round the room, searching for means of escape.
"I declare you are better than any peerage!" she said to him presently, when he had given her a short biography, first of Lord Cathedine, who was sitting opposite, then of various other members of the company. "I should like to tie you to my fan when I go out to dinner." "Would you?" said the young man, drily. "Oh! you will soon know all you want to know."
Yet hitherto he had resolutely escaped his destiny and enjoyed his life. About supper-time he found himself near Lady Cathedine, a thin-faced, silent creature, whose eyes suddenly attracted him. He took her down to supper, and spent an exceedingly dull time. She had the air of one pining to talk, to confide herself. Yet in practice it was apparently impossible for her to do it.
Harding was talking to her, and, to judge from his laughing manner, was amusing himself, if not her. George duly found Lady Cathedine a seat, and returned himself to ask Letty whether it was not time to go. He found, however, that she had been carried off by another partner, and could only resign himself to a fresh twenty minutes of boredom.
He found Letty in very good spirits, owing, as far as he could judge, to the civilities and attentions of Lord Cathedine. Moreover, she was more at ease in her surroundings, and less daunted by Mrs. Allison. "And of course, to-morrow," she said, as she put on her diamonds, "it will be nicer still. We shall all know each other so much better."
He made a low bow, and Naseby, turning, saw young Lady Tressady advancing. "Are you, too, talking politics?" said Letty, with affected disgust, giving her hand to Cathedine and a smile to Naseby. "We will now talk of nothing but your scarlet gown," said Cathedine in her ear. "Amazing!" "You like it?" she said, with nonchalant self-possession. "It makes me look dreadfully wicked, I know."
What was that fellow, Harding Watton, doing in the house at all hours, and beguiling Letty, by his collector's airs, into a hundred foolish wants and whims? And that brute Cathedine!
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