His wife, who was at the other end of the lawn, playing with the children, the boy on her back and a pair of girl twins clinging to her skirts, turned in astonishment and hurried back to him.
"Mrs. Floyd?" They both looked at the card in bewilderment. "Who is it? Mrs. Floyd?"
"What is this lady like?" he asked peremptorily of the parlour-maid.
"Well, sir, she's a dark lady, dressed very smart----"
The girl promptly replied in the negative, qualifying it a moment afterward by a perplexed "Well, I shouldn't say so, sir."
He turned to his wife with a rapid question, under his breath. "Where is Roger?"
"I suspect it is--Mrs. Barnes," said French slowly. "Help me on with my coat, darling. Now then, what shall we do?"
"She can't have come to force herself on him!" cried his wife passionately.
"Probably she knows nothing of his being here. Did he go for a walk?"
"Yes, towards Sandown. But he will be back directly."
A quick shade of expression crossed French's face, which his wife knew to mean that whenever Roger was out by himself there was cause for anxiety. But the familiar trouble was immediately swallowed up in the new and pressing one.
"What can that woman have come to say?" he asked, half of himself, half of his wife, as he walked slowly back to the house. Elsie had conveyed the children to their nurse, and was beside him.
"Perhaps she repents!" The tone was dry and short; it flung a challenge to misdoing.
"I doubt it! But Roger?" French stood still, pondering. "Keep him, darling--intercept him if you can. If he must see her, I will come out. But we mustn't risk a shock."
They consulted a little in low voices. Then French went into the house and Elsie came back to her children. She stood thinking, her fine face, so open-browed and purely lined, frowning and distressed.
French had closed the door of the study behind him and stood without offering to shake hands with his visitor, coldly regarding her.
Daphne rose from her seat, reddening involuntarily.
"My name is no longer what you once knew it, Mr. French. I sent you my card."
French made a slight inclination and pointed to the chair from which she had risen.
"Pray sit down. May I know what has brought you here?"
Daphne resumed her seat, her small hands fidgeting on her parasol.