[Pg 83] "He's never seen you. Perhaps if he did he wouldn't laugh. And perhaps you wouldn't trample on him either." "Ah, but I would!" She tossed her head impatiently. "Well, if you want to meet him. I expect you can do it—on my path to-morrow!" This talk left the Marchesa vaguely vexed. Her feeling could not be called jealousy; nothing can hardly be jealous of nothing, and even as her acquaintance with Lynborough amounted to nothing, Lady Norah's also was represented by a cipher. But why should Norah want to know him? It was the Marchesa's path—by consequence it was the Marchesa's quarrel. Where did Norah stand in the matter? The[Pg 84] Marchesa had perhaps been constructing a little drama. Norah took leave to introduce a new character! [Pg 84] And not Norah alone, as it appeared at dinner. Little Violet Dufaure, whose appealing ways were notoriously successful with the emotionally weaker sex, took her seat at table with a demurely triumphant air. Captain Irons reproached her, with polite gallantry, for having deserted the croquet lawn after tea. "Oh, I went for a walk to Fillby—through Scarsmoor, you know." "Through Scarsmoor, Violet?" The Marchesa sounded rather startled again. "It's a public road, you know, Helena. Isn't it, Mr. Stillford?" Stillford admitted that it was. "All the same, perhaps the less we go there at the present moment——"[Pg 85] [Pg 85] "Oh, but Lord Lynborough asked me to come again and to go wherever I liked—not to keep to the stupid road." Absolute silence reigned. Violet looked round with a smile which conveyed a general appeal for sympathy; there was, perhaps, special reference to Miss Gilletson as the guardian of propriety, and to the Marchesa as the owner of the disputed path. "You see, I took Nellie, and the dear always does run away. She ran after a rabbit. I ran after her, of course. The rabbit ran into a hole, and I ran into Lord Lynborough. Helena, he's charming!" "I'm
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