As she took up the pencil to write her answer to Moody on the back of her dinner-card, the servant appeared again at the door of the tent.

“My master wants you at the cottage, miss, immediately.”

Isabel rose, putting the bracelet and the note in the silver-mounted leather pocket (a present from Hardyman) which hung at her belt.  In the hurry of passing round the table to get out, she never noticed that her dress touched Hardyman’s pocketbook, placed close to the edge, and threw it down on the grass below.  The book fell into one of the heat cracks which Lady Lydiard had noticed as evidence of the neglected condition of the cottage lawn.

“You ought to hear the pleasant news my sister has just brought me,” said Hardyman, when Isabel joined him in the parlor.  “Mrs. Drumblade has been told, on the best authority, that my mother is not coming to the party.”

“There must be some reason, of course, dear Isabel,” added Mrs. Drumblade.  “Have you any idea of what it can be?  I haven’t seen my mother myself; and all my inquiries have failed to find it out.”

She looked searchingly at Isabel as she spoke.  The mask of sympathy on her face was admirably worn.  Nobody who possessed only a superficial acquaintance with Mrs. Drumblade’s character would have suspected how thoroughly she was enjoying in secret the position of embarrassment in which her news had placed her brother.  Instinctively doubting whether Mrs. Drumblade’s friendly behavior was quite as sincere as it appeared to be, Isabel answered that she was a stranger to Lady Rotherfield, and was therefore quite at a loss to explain the cause of her ladyship’s absence.  As she spoke, the guests began to arrive in quick succession, and the subject was dropped as a matter of course.

It was not a merry party.  Hardyman’s approaching marriage had been made the topic of much malicious gossip, and Isabel’s character had, as usual in such cases, become the object of all the false reports that scandal could invent.  Lady Rotherfield’s absence confirmed the general conviction that Hardyman was disgracing himself.  The men were all more or less uneasy.  The women resented the discovery that Isabel was—­personally speaking, at least—­beyond the reach of hostile criticism.  Her beauty was viewed as a downright offense; her refined and modest manners were set down as perfect acting; “really disgusting, my dear, in so young a girl.”  General Drumblade, a large and mouldy veteran, in a state of chronic astonishment (after his own matrimonial experience) at Hardyman’s folly in marrying at all, diffused a wide circle of gloom, wherever he went and whatever he did.  His accomplished wife, forcing her high spirits on everybody’s attention with a sort of kittenish playfulness, intensified the depressing effect of the general dullness by all the force of the strongest contrast.  After waiting half an hour for his mother, and waiting in vain, Hardyman led the way to the tent in despair.  “The sooner I fill their stomachs and get rid of them,” he thought savagely, “the better I shall be pleased!”