But Maude knew how to dissemble.  It pleased her to affect a sudden and violent friendship for Anne.

“Hartledon told me how much I should like you,” she whispered, as they sat together on the sofa after dinner, to which Maude had drawn her.  “He said I should find you the dearest girl I ever met; and I do so.  May I call you ’Anne’?”

Not for a moment did Miss Ashton answer.  Truth to say, far from reciprocating the sudden fancy boasted of by Maude, she had taken an unaccountable dislike to her.  Something of falsity in the tone, of sudden hardiesse in the handsome black eyes, acted upon Anne as an instinctive warning.

“As you please, Lady Maude.”

“Thank you so much.  Hartledon whispered to me the secret about you and Val—­Percival, I mean.  Shall you accomplish the task, think you?”

“What task?”

“That of turning him from his evil ways.”

“His evil ways?” repeated Anne, in a surprised indignation she did not care to check.  “I do not understand you, Lady Maude.”

“Pardon me, my dear Anne:  it was hazardous so to speak to you.  I ought to have said his thoughtless ways.  Quant a moi, je ne vois pas la difference.  Do you understand French?”

Miss Ashton looked at her, really not knowing what this style of conversation might mean.  Maude continued; she had a habit of putting forth a sting on occasion, or what she hoped might be a sting.

“You are staring at the superfluous question.  Of course it is one in these French days, when everyone speaks it.  What was I saying?  Oh, about Percival.  Should he ever have the luck to marry, meaning the income, he will make a docile husband; but his wife will have to keep him under her finger and thumb; she must be master as well as mistress, for his own sake.”

“I think Mr. Elster would not care to be so spoken of,” said Miss Ashton, her face beginning to glow.

“You devoted girl!  It is you who don’t care to hear it.  Take care, Anne; too much love is not good for gaining the mastership; and I have heard that you are—­shall I say it?—­eperdue.”

Anne, in spite of her calm good sense, was actually provoked to a retort in kind, and felt terribly vexed with herself for it afterwards.  “A rumour of the same sort has been breathed as to the Lady Maude Kirton’s regard for Lord Hartledon.”

“Has it?” returned Lady Maude, with a cool tone and a glowing face.  “You are angry with me without reason.  Have I not offered to swear to you an eternal friendship?”

Anne shook her head, and her lips parted with a curious expression.  “I do not swear so lightly, Lady Maude.”

“What if I were to avow to you that it is true?—­that I do love Lord Hartledon, deeply as it is known you love his brother,” she added, dropping her voice—­“would you believe me?”

Anne looked at the speaker’s face, but could read nothing.  Was she in jest or earnest?