And taking up her fan and her opera-cloak, leaving the discarded roses unheeded on the floor, she bade her chaperone good-night, and floated out of the dressing-room, while Lady Marabout sat stirring the cream in a second cup of coffee, a good deal puzzled, a little awed by the odd turn affairs had taken, with a slight feeling of guilt for her own share in the transaction, an uncomfortable dread lest the day should ever come when Flora should reproach her for having persuaded her into the marriage, a comfortable conviction that nothing but good _could_ come of such a brilliant and enviable alliance, and, above all other conflicting feelings, one delicious, dominant, glorified security of triumph over the Hauttons, _mère et filles_.
But when morning dawned, Lady Marabout's horizon seemed cleared of all clouds, and only radiant with unshadowed sunshine. Goodwood was coming, and coming to be accepted.
She seemed already to read the newspaper paragraphs announcing his capture and Flora's conquest, already to hear the Hauttons' enforced congratulations, already to see the nuptial party gathered round the altar rail of St. George's. Lady Marabout had never felt in a sunnier, more light-hearted mood, never more completely at peace with herself and all the world as she sat in her boudoir at her writing-table, penning a letter which began:
"MY DEAREST LILLA,--What happiness it gives me to congratulate you on the brilliant future opening to your sweet Flora----"
And which would have continued, no doubt, with similar eloquence if it had not been interrupted by Soames opening the door and announcing "Sir Philip Carruthers," who walked in, touched his mother's brow with his moustaches, and went to stand on the hearth with his arm on the mantelpiece.
"My dear Philip, you never congratulated me last night; pray do so now!" cried Lady Marabout, delightedly, wiping her pen on the pennon, which a small ormolu knight obligingly carried for that useful purpose. Ladies always wipe their pens as religiously as they bolt their bedroom doors, believe in cosmetics, and go to church on a Sunday.
"Was your news of last night true, then?" asked Carruthers, bending forwards to roll Bijou on its back with his foot.