xchanged glances as they stood waiting, while Lady
Charlotte, in her loudest voice, was commanding Rose to come and see her
in London any Thursday after the first of November. Robert was very
sore. Catherine passionately felt it, and forgetting everything but
him, longed to be out with him in the park comforting him.

'What an absurd fuss you have been making about that girl,' Wynnstay
exclaimed to his wife as the Elsmere party left the room, the squire
conducting Catherine with a chill politeness. 'And now, I suppose, you
will be having her up in town, and making some young fellow who ought to
know better fall in love with her. I am told the father was a
grammar-school headmaster. Why can't you leave people where they
belong?'

'I have already pointed out to you,' Lady Charlotte observed calmly,
'that the world has moved on since you were launched into it. I can't
keep up class-distinctions to please you; otherwise, no doubt, being the
devoted wife I am, I might try. However, my dear, we both have our
fancies. You collect Sevres china with or without a pedigree,' and she
coughed drily; 'I collect promising young women. On the whole, I think
my hobby is more beneficial to you than yours is profitable to me.'

Mr. Wynnstay was furious. Only a week before he had been childishly,
shamefully taken in by a Jew curiosity-dealer from Vienna, to his wife's
huge amusement. If looks could have crushed her, Lady Charlotte would
have been crushed. But she was far too substantial as she lay back in
her chair, one large foot crossed over the other, and, as her husband
very well knew, the better man of the two. He walked away, murmuring
under his moustache words that would hardly have borne publicity, while
Lady Charlotte, through her glasses, made a minute study of a little
French portrait hanging some two yards from her.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the Elsmere party were stepping out into the warm damp of the
night. The storm had died away, but a soft Scotch mist of rain filled
the air. Everything was dark, save for a few ghostly glimmerings through
the trees of the avenue; and there was a strong sweet smell of wet earth
and grass. Rose had drawn the hood of her waterproof over her head, and
her face gleamed an indistinct whiteness from its shelter. Oh this
leaping pulse--this bright glow of expectation! How had she made this
stupid blunder about his going? Oh, it was Catherine's mistake, of
course, at