"By the door, Lady Earlsley, which was open. Mother, you will lose all your plate some day."
"And what public meeting have you come from now?" asked Lady Bell, with a smile.
"I have been walking in the park," said Stephen, "and am at your ladyship's service."
"I am glad of it," said Lady Bell, quickly, "for I want you--all of you to come and dine with me tonight."
"Tonight! Why not? You have plenty of time to dress. Come, it will be charity--there's an argument for you, Mr. Davenant--for Mrs. Fellowes and I are all alone; papa has gone to some learned society meeting. Come, I'll go home at once and tell them to get your favorite wines ready. What _is_ your favorite, Mr. Newcombe?"
"I'd come and dine with _you_, Lady Bell, if you gave us ginger beer," he said.
Lady Bell laughed, but she looked pleased.
"Now, that is what I call a really good compliment--for a Savage," and she glanced at Jack archly. "We'll say half-past eight tonight to give you time to finish your chat. _Au revoir_," and waving her daintily-gloved hand, she flitted from the room.
"Would he dine with me if I had only ginger beer to offer him?" she asked herself, as she went back in the brougham. "Would he? He looks so honest and so true!--so incapable of a mean, unworthy action! I wish I were as poor--as poor as Una. How quietly she sits. She has just the air of one of the great ones of the earth--the air which I, with all my title and wealth, shall never have. I wonder who she is, and whether Mr. Stephen thinks her as beautiful as I do! He looked at her as he went in--well, just as I would that _some one else_ would look at me. How handsome he is, so different to Stephen Davenant. Ah, me! I know now why Brighton was so hateful; if Jack Newcombe had been there I should not have hungered and pined for London! What a miserable, infatuated being I am. I am as bad as that foolish maid of mine. Yes, just as bad, for if Jack Newcombe came and asked me, I should run away with him as she did with her young man!"
Still thinking of him, she reached home and went up to her own room, where Mrs. Fellowes, the long-suffering, hastened to meet her.
"My dear, I'm so glad you've come. How long you have been."
"My dear, you say that every time I come in. What is the matter--another maid run away?"