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"You are passing kind to the youth, Marmaduke," said Mistress de Chavasse meditatively when the young man's darkly-clad figure had disappeared up the stairs. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, her head resting against the carved woodwork. The folds of her simple gown hung primly round her well-shaped figure.
Near him Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, sitting with his back to the dim November light, which vainly strove to penetrate the tiny glass panes of the casement windows. In a more remote corner of the room sat Editha de Chavasse, vainly trying to conceal the agitation which her trembling hands, her quivering face and restless eyes persistently betrayed.
"I thank you, master," said Mistress de Chavasse, rising from her chair, intimating that this interview was now over, "you have told me all that I wish to know. Let me assure you, that I will not prove ungrateful. Your services will be amply repaid by whomever succeeds to the title and revenues of Northallerton. Did you wish to see Sir Marmaduke?"
"Mistress de Chavasse is a member of the family," replied Sir Marmaduke, "the business can be transacted in her presence." "Nothing therefore remains to be said, my dear young lady," rejoined Master Skyffington, once more speaking directly to Sue and placing his lean hands with fingers outstretched, over the bundles of papers lying before him.
In the hubbub which immediately followed Lord Walterton's tirade, Editha de Chavasse beckoned to the florid woman who seemed to be her henchwoman and drew her aside to a distant corner of the room, where there were no tables nigh and where the now subdued hum of the voices, mingling with the sound of music on virginal and stringed instruments, made a murmuring noise which effectually drowned the talk between the two women.
His horizon so far had been very limited; only quite vaguely had he heard of town and Court life. The little cottage where dwelt the old Quakeress who had brought him and his brother up, and the tumble-down, dilapidated house of Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse were the only habitations in which he was intimate.
Mistress de Chavasse who had been singularly silent all the afternoon, walked quickly in advance of her brother-in-law's guests, no doubt in order to cast a scrutinizing eye over the arrangements of the table, which she had entrusted to the servants.
He declared himself ready to administer it all himself, as he professed a distrust of those who had watched over it so far Master Skyffington, the lawyer, and Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, both under the control of the Court of Chancery.
"This is an infamous plot," he said calmly, but very firmly. "Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse," he added, turning to face his employer, who still stood motionless and silent in the background, "in the name of Heaven I beg of you to explain to these gentlemen that you have known me from boyhood.
"Ventre-saint-gris!" swore Endicott with an unmistakable British accent in the French expletive, "but I'll play no more.... The bank is broken ... and I have lost too much money. Mr. Segrave there has nearly cleaned me out and still I cannot break his luck." He rose abruptly from his chair, even as Mistress de Chavasse quietly walked away from the table.
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