"No. I am going
upstairs to Stella."
Lady Loring found Miss Eyrecourt in her own room. The little
portrait of Romayne which she had drawn from
recollection lay on
the table before her. She was examining it with the closest
attention.
"Well, Stella, and what does the
portrait tell you?"
"What I knew before, Adelaide. There is nothing false and nothing
cruel in that face."
"And does the discovery satisfy you? For my part, I despise
Romayne for hiding himself from us. Can you excuse him?"
Stella locked up the
portrait in her writing-case. "I can wait,"
she said quietly
Thi s
assertion of
patience seemed to
irritate Lady Loring "What
is the matter with you this morning?" she asked. "You are more
reserved than ever."
"No; I am only out of spirits, Adelaide. I can't help thinking of
that meeting with Winterfield. I feel as if some
misfortune was
hanging over my head."
"Don't speak of that
hateful man!" her ladyship exclaimed. "I
have something to tell you about Romayne. Are you completely
absorbed in your presentiments of evil? or do you think you can
listen to me?"
Stella's face answered for her. Lady Loring described the
interview with Major Hynd in the minutest detail--including, by
way of
illustration, the Major's manners and personal appearance.
"He and Lord Loring," she added, "both think that Romayne will
never hear the last of it if he allows these foreigners to look
to him for money. Until something more is known about them, the
letter is not to be forwarded."
"I wish I had the letter," cried Stella.
"Would you forward it to Romayne?"
"Instantly! Does it matter whether these poor French people are
worthy of his
generosity? If it restores his tranquillity to help
them, who cares whether they
deserve the help? They are not even
to know who it is that
assists them--Romayne is to be their
unknown friend. It is he, not they, whom we have to think of--his
peace of mind is everything; their merit is nothing. I say it's
cruel to _him_ to keep him in
ignorance of what has happened. Why
didn't you take the letter away from Major Hynd?"
"Gently, Stella! The Major is going to make inquiries about the
widow and children when he returns to London."
"When he returns!" Stella
repeatedindignantly. "Who knows what
the poor wretches may be
suffering in the
interval, and what
Romayne may feel if he ever hears of it? Tell me the address
again--it was somewhere in Islington, you said."
"Why do you want to know it?" Lady Loring asked. "You are not
going to write to Romayne yourself?"
"I am going to think, before I do anything. If you can't trust my
discretion, Adelaide, you have only to say so!"
It was
spokensharply. Lady Loring's reply betrayed a certain
loss of
temper on her side. "Manage your own affairs, Stella--I
have done meddling with them." Her
unlucky visit to Romayne at
the hotel had been a subject of
dispute between the two
friends--and this referred to it. "You shall have the address,"
my lady added in her grandest manner. She wrote it on a piece of
paper, and left the room.
Easily
irritated, Lady Loring had the merit of being easily
appeased. That meanest of all vices, the vice of sulkiness, had
no
existence in her nature. In five minutes she regretted her
little
outburst of irritability. For five minutes more she
waited, on the chance that Stella might be the first to seek a
reconciliation. The
interval passed, and nothing happened. "Have
I really offended her?" Lady Loring asked herself. The next
moment she was on her way back to Stella. The room was empty. She
rang the bell for the maid.
"Where is Miss Eyrecourt?"
"Gone out, my lady."
"Did she leave no message?"
"No, my lady. She went away in a great hurry."
Lady Loring at once drew the
conclusion that Stella had rashly
taken the affair of the General's family into her own hands. Was
it possible to say how this most imprudent
proceeding might end?
After hesitating and reflecting, and hesitating again, Lady
Loring's
anxiety got beyond her control. She not only
decided on