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Suddenly a movement of Lady Ermyntrude's made the speaker turn her head. She saw the pair at the end of the room, looked astonished, then smiled. "Why, Mr. Raeburn! where have you been hiding yourself during this great discussion? Most consoling, wasn't it on the whole to us West End people?" She threw back a keen glance at Marcella. Lady Ermyntrude and Raeburn came forward.
"You have a fashion of speech which carries me back to the old men whom I met in my boyhood," said he. "There were some of the real old knight-errants left in those days, and they spoke as you do. Young as you are, you belong to another age. Where got you that trick of thought and word?" "I have had only one to teach me, the Lady Ermyntrude."
Back to the Conquest and before it there was not a noble family-tree every twig and bud of which was not familiar to the Dame Ermyntrude. And now when the trestles were cleared and the three were left alone in the hall, Chandos broke his message to the lady. "King Edward hath ever borne in mind that noble knight your son Sir Eustace," said he.
"He is indeed a soldier and a good one," Chandos answered, laughing, "and I warrant he has slept in rougher quarters than Tilford Manor-house." "I have few friends, fair sir," said Nigel, with a puzzled face. "I pray you give me this gentleman's name." "His name is Edward." "Sir Edward Mortimer of Kent, perchance, or is it Sir Edward Brocas of whom the Lady Ermyntrude talks?"
Throughout the long feast which the skill of the Lady Ermyntrude had arranged, Edward chatted lightly with the Italian as well as with the barons near him.
"I shall have to walk home my own poor little self, and 'ask a p'leeceman. Mr. Raeburn!" He disengaged himself from a group behind and came with no alacrity. Betty ran up to him. "Mr. Raeburn! Ermyntrude and Lady Winterbourne are going to sleep here, if you don't mind making arrangements. But I want a hansom."
And I have heard so little of you your mother never seemed to know. When will you come and see me or shall I come to you? I can't stay now, for we were just going; my daughter, Ermyntrude Welwyn, has to take some one to a ball. How strange" she broke off "how very strange that you and he should have met to-night! He goes off to Italy to-morrow, you know, with Lord Maxwell."
Clarke never glanced towards her. Perhaps, whatever Lady Ermyntrude had believed hitherto, she was now beginning to wonder whether her conception of her son's wife had been a wrong one, was beginning to ask herself whether she had divined the nature of the soul inhabiting the body which now stood up before her.
And the young man has behaved so beautifully till now has given neither Ermyntrude nor me any trouble." Was that why Betty was leading him such a life? Marcella wondered, then suddenly was seized with a sick distaste for the whole scene for Betty's love affairs for her own interest in them for her own self and personality above all.
Yet this motley array was fired with the spirit of the house, and under the lead of the fierce old soldier they would certainly have flung themselves upon the ready swords of the archers, had the Lady Ermyntrude not swept between them: "Stand back, Swire!" she cried. "Back, Weathercote Charles, put a leash on Talbot, and hold Bayard back!"
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