Part 84 (1/2)

”No.”

”When we had left your house and walked for some time in a silence most unusual where _she_ is, she said, in her small, solemn way, 'Molly, why does Lady Stafford have her kitchen in her drawing-room?'

Now, was it not a capital bit of china-mania? I thought it very severe on the times.”

”It was cruel. I shall instantly send my plates and jugs, and that delicious old Worcester tureen down-stairs to their proper place,” says Cecil, laughing. ”There is no criticism so cutting as a child's.”

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

”Ask me no more; thy fate and mine are sealed.

I strove against the stream, and all in vain.

Let the great river take me to the main.

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.”

--_The Princess._

Almost as Cecil steps into her carriage, Sir Penthony Stafford is standing on her steps, holding sweet converse with her footman at her own hall-door.

”Lady Stafford at home?” asks he of the brilliant but supercilious personage who condescends to answer to his knock.

”No, sir.” Being a new acquisition of Cecil's, he is blissfully ignorant of Sir Penthony's name and status. ”My lady is hout.”

”When will she be home?” Feeling a good deal of surprise at her early wanderings, and, in fact, not believing a word of it.

”My lady won't be at home all this morning, sir.”

”Then I shall wait till the afternoon,” says Sir Penthony, faintly amused, although exasperated at what he has decided is a heinous lie.

”Lady Stafford gave strict horders that no one was to be admitted before two,” says flunkey, indignant at the stranger's persistence, who has come into the hall and calmly divested himself of his overcoat.

”She will admit _me_, I don't doubt,” says Sir Penthony, calmly.

”I am Sir Penthony Stafford.”

”Oh, indeed! Sir Penthony, I beg your pardon. Of course, Sir Penthony, if you wish to wait----”

Here Sir Penthony, who has slowly been mounting the stairs all this time, with Chawles, much exercised in his mind, at his heels--(for Cecil's commands are not to be disputed, and the situation is a good one, and she has distinctly declared no one is to be received)--Sir Penthony pauses on the landing and lays his hand on the boudoir door.

”Not there, Sir Penthony,” says the man, interposing hurriedly, and throwing open the drawing-room door, which is next to it. ”If you will wait here I don't think my lady will be long, as she said she should be 'ome at one to keep an appointment.”

”That will do.” Sternly. ”Go!--I dare say,” thinks Stafford, angrily, as the drawing-room door is closed on him, ”if I make a point of it, she will dismiss that fellow. Insolent and noisy as a parrot. A well-bred footman never gets beyond 'Yes' or 'No' unless required, and even then only under heavy pressure. But what appointment can she have?

And who is secreted in her room? Pshaw! Her dressmaker, no doubt.”

But, for all that, he can't quite reconcile himself to the dressmaker theory, and, but that honor forbids, would have marched straight, without any warning, into ”my lady's chamber.”

Getting inside the heavy hanging curtains, he employs his time watching through the window the people pa.s.sing to and fro, all intent upon the great business of life,--the making and spending of money.