er own," she said to her husband. Sir Tom's countenance was
almost convulsed by one of those laughs, which he now found it expedient
to suppress, but he only replied that he had never heard of such an
event. "Ah! it must have been before you knew her; but she has never got
it out of her mind," Lucy cried. That hypothesis explained everything.
At this time it is scarcely necessary to say Lucy was with her whole
soul trying to be "very fond," as she expressed it, of the Contessa.
There were some things about her which startled young Lady Randolph. For
one thing, she would go out shooting with Sir Tom, and was as good a
shot as any of the gentlemen. This wounded Lucy terribly, and took her a
great effort to swallow. It went against all her traditions. With her
bourgeois education she hated sport, and even in her husband with
difficulty made up her mind to it; but that a woman should go forth and
slay was intolerable.

There were other things besides which were a mystery to her. Lady
Randolph's invariably defiant attitude for one, and the curious aspect
of the Duchess when suddenly brought face to face with the stranger. It
appeared that they were old friends, which astonished Lucy, but not so
much as the great lady's bewildered look when Madame di Forno-Populo
went up to her. It seemed for a moment as if the shock was too much for
her. She stammered and shook through all her dignity and greatness, as
she exclaimed. "_You_! here?" in two distinct outcries, gazing appalled
into the smiling and beautiful face before her. But then the Duchess
came to, after a while. She seemed to get over her surprise, which was
more than surprise. All these things disturbed Lucy. She did not know
what to make of them. She was uneasy at the change that had been
wrought upon her own household, which she did not understand. Yet it was
all perfectly simple, she said to herself. It was Tom's duty to devote
himself to the stranger. It was the duty of both as hosts to procure for
her such amusement as was to be found. These were things of which Lucy
convinced herself by various half unconscious processes of argument. But
it was necessary to renew these arguments from time to time, to keep
possession of them in order to feel their force as she wished to do. She
said nothing to her husband on the subject, with an instinctive sense
that it would be very difficult to handle. And Sir Tom, too, avoided it.
But it was impossible to pursue the same reticence