Part 42 (1/2)

”I can't tell you,” he said, ”ill be going on at the castle I haven't been back since I left it two days ago, and al can have happened in that time The duchess of Westboro' herself, in the interval, one back to her husband”

”Heavens!” Mrs Falconer exclaimed, ”in which case how horribly _de trop_ we shall be”

But Bulstrode consoled her with the thought that if they were _de trop_ they would at least be _de trop ense for her in her dressing-room at the castle there had been a despatch from America Even this, and a hasty look at herher attention or even carrying it beyond the house Her husband had expected to land in Liverpool at the end of the co week; he was to take her ho, as she always did in his absence, deeply

There had been no one to greet them as Bulstrode and herself cain without loss of time her boasted rapid toilet The dress, whose harmony had impressed her host, the Duke, on a former visit at the castle, had been laid out for her; its sumptuous color overspread the bed But the lady chose instead a white gohose art of holding to her, and holding her, in its simple lines and splendid sheen, made its beauty

There was much of the true woman in this entirely lovely creature, as she stood before her glass and saw herself, the best exaave her a freedorace, a certain imperial set of the head

Bulstrode had once said to the duchess of Westboro' that a woman should above all ”console” Mary Falconer would have knohat he loriously represented! The sweetness and dearness of her Well, there were feomen no doubt like her Jimmy hoped so for the sake of the race, for the sake of the hearts of other men She was the ideal fireside of home, and when, as she had twice done, she bade him, as that time she had said, ”Build here,” he knehat she meant and felt, and that she herself was exquisitely ho-table she scrutinized not her face, whose ardent beauty seelass, but her hair as it fell and rippled and flowed round her brows Along the edge of one of the lustrous waves was a touch as if her powder puff had brushed her hair

Mrs Falconer put up her hand, srew It so declared itself to be the first unardener's basket full of roses and caardenias and carnations had been sent up for her; but under the diamond at her breast she chose rather to fasten in a spray of reen scarf fell over her arainst the whiteness of her dress like a branch of spring verdure, and permitted by the fashi+on of the day, there shook and tre, pear-shaped pearls which, like her thimble, had been her mother's

As she left the security of her room and fire for the corridors and the publicity of the lower roo of _pruderie_ at the bare beauty of her neck and ar unclad into the street, and drew her scarf across her breast But she found herself to be quite alone in the drawing-roo desertion, a letter was handed her with a few ht, she reflected, for so blandly co a state of domestic upheaval, that she should turn out to be not alone the only guest, but without host or friend! The letter told her, as gently as it could without the satisfaction of any explanation, that both Bulstrode and the Duke of Westboro' were unavoidably absent She turned the letter over with keen disappointment Her dress, her beauty which the drive frohtened to a point that she ! On what extravagant bent could the two one?

”Both of the, ”off on a hunt, I dare say, after a fool of a woh to stop at home”

Before she could further lash at her absent hostess, she found herself a few seconds later taking the scarcely palpable arm of the rector, whom the Duke, in a moment of abstraction, had asked to the Christotten to put off The rector alone, of all the expected, turned up, his smile vacuous and his appetite in order At the table laid for four, and great enough for forty, the clergyman and the lady faced each other Mrs Falconer smiled kindly, for as her friend had told the duchess on the say for a man her slender _vis-a-vis_ presented, she did not show her scorn; she smiled kindly at him His cloth and habit, and cut even, wore the air of disapproval Her jewels, the bare splendor of her neck and arms, seemed out of place, and yet she could not but be perfectly sure that even the dull eyes of her _vis-a-vis_ not alone reflected, but confirentleman was new to Glouceshi+re, but it turned out that he already knew its hearsays and its _on dits_ and he knehen she asked hi of the country and The Dials It htinto theave the ht, to descend to scandal; at all events, after dinner, over a cigar slass of Benedictine at his elbow, in his cheeks a entleman leaned forward, and tried to adapt his speech and topic to the worldly vein which he iined was the habitual tenor of a fashi+onable woman's life

”Even this lovely shi+re,” he drawled its beauty--”cannot, so it would seem, be free from scandal And where a h for the s”

The rector lifted his eyes to the fine old ceiling as if in its shi+elds and blazons he was impressed by the blots of recent sins

His hand touched the little liqueur glass He picked it up and in a second of abstraction tried to drain its oily e,” said Mrs Falconer, ”and send for some more Benedictine, or better still, for soht ”No ht be a bottle of soda You spoke of lovely Glousceshi+re and then spoke of The Dials Do you know the place?”

Only, she told him, by hearsay

He solemnly supposed so; so he hirowing to know it

The eyes of the lady to whoossip were intently on hi at him, neither did she at once find ready words to refute, to cast down, to blot out, his hideous suggestion that filled the rooood-humoredly been amused by his intense Britishness thus far, his pale lack of individuality, his perfect type, now looked sharply at her coht, Mrs Falconer was used to the indifferent, rather brutal handling by society of human lives

Possibly as she adored people, no one of her set was more interested in the comedies and dramas of her _contemporains_ But there are ways and channels: what runs clear in one runs muddy in another