"All right!" he said, rising. "Now I think we are agreed on the first step. Faversham is our man. I must see Faversham at once, and set him to work! If I find him, I will report the result to you, Mrs. Melrose--so far--by luncheon time."
He departed, to ring up the Threlfall office in Pengarth and inquire whether Faversham could be seen there. Victoria left the room with him.
"Have you forgotten these rumours of which Undershaw wrote you?"
"What, as to Faversham? No, I have not forgotten them. But I shan't take any notice of them. He can't accept anything for himself till these two have got their due! What right has he to Melrose's property at all?" said the young man indignantly.
The mother and son had scarcely left the room when Netta turned to her daughter with trembling lips.
"I haven't"--half whispering--"told them anything about the Hermes!"
"It was no theft!" said Felicia passionately. "I would tell anybody!"
Netta was silent, her face working with unspoken fear. Suddenly, Felicia said in her foreign English, pronounced with a slight effort, and very precisely:
"Lord Tatham? Not at all, Felicia. He is very nice, but I do not even call him good-looking."
"He is a very beautiful young man," repeated Felicia with emphasis, "and I am going to marry him!"
"Felicia! for heaven's sake--do not show your mad ways here!" cried Netta, white with new alarm.
For the first time for many, many days Felicia smiled. She got up and went to a glass that hung on the wall. Taking one of the sidecombs from her curls, she began to pull them out, winding them round her tiny fingers, making more of them, and patting them back into place, till her head was one silky mass of ripples. Then she looked at herself.
"I must have a new dress at once!" she said peremptorily.
"I don't know where you'll get it!" cried Netta--"you foolish child!"
"The young man will give it me." And still before the glass, she gave a little bound, like a kitten. Then she ran back to her mother, took Netta's face in her hands, dashed a kiss at it, and subsided, weak and gasping, on to a sofa. When Victoria reappeared Felicia was motionless as before, but there was a first streak of colour in her thin, cheeks, and a queer brightness in her eyes.