Insensibly my heart became lightened.

She talked to me of grandmamma, too, and drew me into telling her things about our past.  She was interested in grandmamma’s strange bringing-up of me, so different, she said, to the English girls of the present day.

“And is it that, I wonder, which has turned you into almost as great a cynic as Antony Thornhirst?  He is the greatest I know.”

“But can one be a cynic if one has so kind a heart?” I asked.

She looked at me quickly with a strange look.

“How have you discovered that so soon?  Most people would not credit him with having any heart at all,” she said.  “You know with all his immense prestige and popularity people are a little afraid of him.  I think one would sum up the impression of Antony as a man who never in all his life has been, or will be, called ‘Tony.’”

Her voice was retrospecting.

“You have known him very long?” I questioned.

“Ever since I married, fourteen years ago.  I remember I saw him first at my wedding.  He and Tilchester had, of course, been old friends, always living so near each other.  We are exactly the same age—­thirty-four, both of us.  Growing old, you see!” She laughed softly, then she continued: 

“Antony was never like other men exactly.  He is original, and extraordinarily well read—­only casually one would never guess it.  He wastes his life rather, though.  I wish he would go into Parliament.  He has a habit of rushing off on long travels.  Some years ago he went off suddenly and was away for ages and ages—­about five years, I think.  Then he stayed at Dane Mount for a while, and then, when the war first began, he went out there, and has only been home a year.”

“He never speaks of himself nor what he does, I notice.”

“No; that is just his charm.  I should like you to see Dane Mount.  It is far nicer than this, and he has wonderful taste.  It is the most comfortable house I know.  He has delightful parties there when the shooting begins.”

“It would interest me to see it, because grandpapa came from there,” I said.

“Of course, you are cousins, in a way.  You don’t know how interested Antony was in you that night after the Tilchester Yeomanry ball.  He came and sat in my sitting-room and talked to me about you, and then it was he put two and two together and discovered you were related.  I had heard that evening about your grandmother and you living at the cottage, and was able to give him some information.  I don’t think he realized when you met that you were connected, did he?”

“No, not at all.”

“A friend of mine and I were sitting by the fire, having said good-night to the rest of the party—­do you remember what a cold May night it was?  Antony came in and joined us.  We all had admired you so.  I recollect this is one of the things he said:  ’I met an eighteenth-century marquise to-night.’”