“‘Letty went by the nine o’clock
train,’” she said aloud, smiling, and
mocking her own white reflection. “’Dear
me! How sudden! how extraordinary! Yes,
but that’s like her. H’m—’
Then he must write to me, for I shall write him
a civil little note asking for that book I lent him.
Oh! I hope Aunt Watton and his mother will
bore him to death!”
She broke out into a merry laugh; then, sweeping her
mass of pretty hair to one side, she began rapidly
to coil it up for the night, her fingers working as
fast as her thoughts, which were busy with one ingenious
plan after another for her next meeting with George
Tressady.
During this same space of time, which for Miss Sewell’s
maid ended so disagreeably, George Tressady was engaged
in a curious conversation.
He had excused himself from smoking, on the ground
of fatigue, immediately after his parting from Letty.
But he had only nominally gone to bed. He too
found it difficult to tear himself from thinking and
the fire, and had not begun to undress when he heard
a knock at his door. On his reply, Lord Fontenoy
entered.
“May I come in, Tressady?”
“By all means.”
George, however, stared at his invader in some astonishment.
His relations with Fontenoy were not personally intimate.
“Well, I’m glad to find you still up,
for I had a few words on my mind to say to you before
I go off to-morrow. Can you spare me ten minutes?”
“Certainly; do sit down. Only—well,
I’m afraid I’m pretty well done. If
it’s anything important, I can’t promise
to take it in.”
Lord Fontenoy for a moment made no reply. He
stood by the fire, looking at the cigarette he still
held, in silence. George watched him with repressed
annoyance.
“It’s been a very hot fight, this,”
said Fontenoy at last, slowly, “and you’ve
won it well. All our band have prospered in the
matter of elections. But this contest of yours
has been, I think, the most conspicuous that any of
us have fought. Your speeches have made a mark—one
can see that from the way in which the Press has begun
to take them, political beginner though you are.
In the House you will be, I think, our best speaker—of
course with time and experience. As for me, if
you give me a fortnight to prepare in, I can make out
something. Otherwise I am no use. You
will take a good debating place from the beginning.
Well, it is only what I expected.”
The speaker stopped. George, fidgeting in his
chair, said nothing; and presently Fontenoy resumed:
“I trust you will not think what I am going
to say an intrusion, but—you remember my
letters to you in India?”
George nodded.
