“These are pictures of the city I told you about—­the city built in the sea—­where the streets are water.  You and Mrs. Welden can look at them together,” she said, as she laid flowers and book down.  “I am going to Dunholm Castle to a garden party this afternoon.  Some day I will come and tell you about it.”

The two were at the window staring spellbound, as she swept back to the carriage between the sweet-williams and Canterbury bells bordering the narrow garden path.

“Do you know I really went in to let them see my dress,” she said, when she rejoined Lady Anstruthers.  “Old Doby’s granddaughter told me that he and Mrs. Welden have little quarrels about the colours I wear.  It seems that they find my wardrobe an absorbing interest.  When I put the book on the table, I felt Doby touch my sleeve with his trembling old hand.  He thought I did not know.”

“What will they do with Venice?” asked Rosy.

“They will believe the water is as blue as the photographs make it—­and the palaces as pink.  It will seem like a chapter out of Revelations, which they can believe is true and not merely ’Scriptur,’—­because I have been there.  I wish I had been to the City of the Gates of Pearl, and could tell them about that.”

On the lawns at the garden parties she was much gazed at and commented upon.  Her height and her long slender neck held her head above those of other girls, the dense black of her hair made a rich note of shadow amid the prevailing English blondness.  Her mere colouring set her apart.  Rosy used to watch her with tender wonder, recalling her memory of nine-year-old Betty, with the long slim legs and the demanding and accusing child-eyes.  She had always been this creature even in those far-off days.  At the garden party at Dunholm Castle it became evident that she was, after a manner, unusually the central figure of the occasion.  It was not at all surprising, people said to each other.  Nothing could have been more desirable for Lord Westholt.  He combined rank with fortune, and the Vanderpoel wealth almost constituted rank in itself.  Both Lord and Lady Dunholm seemed pleased with the girl.  Lord Dunholm showed her great attention.  When she took part in the dancing on the lawn, he looked on delightedly.  He walked about the gardens with her, and it was plain to see that their conversation was not the ordinary polite effort to accord, usually marking the talk between a mature man and a merely pretty girl.  Lord Dunholm sometimes laughed with unfeigned delight, and sometimes the two seemed to talk of grave things.

“Such occasions as these are a sort of yearly taking of the social census of the county,” Lord Dunholm explained.  “One invites all one’s neighbours and is invited again.  It is a friendly duty one owes.”

“I do not see Lord Mount Dunstan,” Betty answered.  “Is he here?”

She had never denied to herself her interest in Mount Dunstan, and she had looked for him.  Lord Dunholm hesitated a second, as his son had done at Miss Vanderpoel’s mention of the tabooed name.  But, being an older man, he felt more at liberty to speak, and gave her a rather long kind look.