“Wh—­at do you wish me to do?”

“To dry your eyes and come down with me to dinner and chat away as we always do.  If your husband was going home Martin will bring back word that he is there, or else he will come here and fetch you.”

“You took the message?” Mrs. Chetwode asked as the two ladies descended to dinner.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Really, Nina, I ought to have ordered a better dinner for you.”

“Oh, I’m not a bit hungry.”

“But you ought to be after going about so much as we have to-day.  By-the-by, how did you decide about that hat I saw; do you think it will suit you?  Describe it to me.”

Forced to answer, Nina was trotted by her friend from one subject of toilette to the other, until in the midst of a got-up argument concerning trimmings, there came a thundering knock at the door.

“Dear bless me!  What a late visitor!  Who can it be?  Martin, just go out and look—­never mind the door,” and Mrs. Chetwode jumped up and stood so that she could hear the inquiry:  “Is Mrs. Dacres here?”

“Yes, sir, the ladies are at dinner.”

“Oh!  Ah!”

“Captain Dacres, is that you?” Bella had run out to meet him.  “Why, what a surprise—­Nina, fancy, here’s your husband, dear,” and she preceded Rowley back into the dining-room.

“Rowley!” For her life Nina couldn’t say more—­every atom of colour had forsaken her.

“My dear child, have I frightened you?  I’m so sorry, but I found after all I had to come to town.  Carne has made such an awful mess about the gun he was to get for me, and so I didn’t write.  I thought I’d surprise you.”

Nina laughed out like a boisterous child.  “What a silly thing I am,” she said, “I was afraid something had happened.”

Rowley put his arm round her, for though she was laughing, her voice sounded like crying all the time.

Under other circumstances he might have been more struck with the little embarrassment which she could not perfectly control, but at the moment he was not quite himself either.  That impudent Doady Donne had played a shameful hoax on him, had actually had the audacity to declare that she had seen his wife—­Nina, Mrs. Dacres—­in Teddy Vere’s hansom!  He hadn’t taken what she said very pleasantly, for the bare notion made him furious, and—­though telling himself all the while that he didn’t believe it—­until he had found Nina seated with her friend, it was impossible to feel any security.

“’Pon my life, it’s too bad!” he was saying mentally.  “I don’t know what things are coming to; there ought to be a stop put to it, a line must be drawn somewhere; and such women oughtn’t to be permitted to speak of a lady in that chaify way.”

While these reflections occupied his mind he was giving scraps of news to Nina, and answering Mrs. Chetwode, who was frankly saying that she hadn’t a morsel of dinner to give him.

“But I don’t want any, I’ve only just had a most enormous luncheon.”