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Emily Guiscard would have Sir James Danvers and Lord Coltshurst as neighbors, and Mary her uncle, the Duke's brother, a widower, Lord Charles Montfitchet, and his son, "Young Billy," the Glastonbury heir Lady Ethelrida was the Duke's only child. At a quarter before eight Francis Markrute went up to his niece's sitting-room.
I am afraid Tristram and the rest of us except Lord Coltshurst have not had anything sensible like that in us for hundreds of years, so what would be your speculation as to the action of our group?"
The host soon turned back from duty to pleasure, leaving Lady Coltshurst to Lord Charles Montfitchet. The conversation turned upon types. Types were not things of chance, Francis Markrute affirmed; if one could look back far enough there was always a reason for them.
A few minutes after this, Lady Coltshurst announced it was time to go, and she would take the girls home. And the Duke's carriage was also waiting, and good nights were said, and the host whispered to Jimmy Danvers, "Take Tancred along with you, too, please. My niece is overtired with the strain of this evening and I want her to go to bed at once." And to Tristram he said,
And inwardly the sense of some unknown undercurrent that might grow into a rushing torrent made itself felt, stronger than before. Meanwhile Lady Coltshurst, who could just see Zara's profile all the time when she put up those irritating, longhandled glasses of hers, now gave her opinion of the bride-elect to Lord Charles Montfitchet, her neighbor on the left hand.
Beyond the Duke sat Jimmy Danvers, and then Emily Guiscard and Lord Coltshurst, and the two young people exchanged confidences in a low voice. "I say, Emily, isn't she a corker?" Sir James said. "She don't look a bit English, though, she reminds me of a oh, well, I'm not good at history or dates, but some one in the old Florentine time.
"Zara, it is understood you will be gracious? and brusquer no one?" But all the reply he received was a glance of scorn. She had given her word and refused to discuss that matter. And so they descended the stairs just in time to be standing ready to receive Lord and Lady Coltshurst who were the first to be announced.
I trust she won't prejudice your Aunt Jane." "Aunt Jane always thinks for herself," said Lady Ethelrida. She announced no personal opinion about Tristram's fiancé, nor could Lord Coltshurst extort one from her. As the dinner went on she felt a growing sense that they were all on the edge of a volcano.
It was certainly a mask this extraordinary and beautiful young woman was wearing, she felt, and presently, when Lady Coltshurst who had remained rather silently aloof, only fixing them all in turn with her long eyeglasses, drew the girls aside to talk to her by asking for news of their mother's headache, Ethelrida indicated she and Zara might sit down upon the nearest, stiff, French sofa; and as she clasped her thin, fine hands together, holding her pale gray gloves which she did not attempt to put on again, she said gently: "I hope we shall all make you feel you are so welcome, Zara may I call you Zara?
Lady Ethelrida would now sit on the host's right hand, and Lady Coltshurst, an aunt on the Tancred side, at his left, while Zara would be between the Duke and her fiancé, as originally arranged.
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