"And hastened to pay your respects to the law rather than to me," Lady Barbara taunted him lightly.
"I would not have ventured to present myself at this hour," he rejoined. "And, apparently, would have found the Lady Barbara from home."
"So a beneficent Fairy whispered to You to go and see Mr. Notary, and thus arranged everything for the best."
"The beneficent Fairy had her work cut out, then," Lord Douglas remarked, somewhat impatiently, I thought.
"How do you mean?" she retorted.
"Why," said he, "in order to secure this tryst, the beneficient Fairy had first to bring me hither as well as Stour, and Lady Castlemaine to the India House. Then she had to inflame the temper of a whole Crowd of Roisterers sufficiently to cause the worthy Pyncheon to take to his heels, with you in the chair. In fact, the good Fairy must have been to endless trouble to arrange this meeting 'twixt Lady Barbara and her Lover, when but a few hours later that same meeting would have come about quite naturally."
"Nay, then!" she riposted with perfect good humour, "let us call it a happy Coincidence, and say no more about it."
Even then her Brother uttered an angry exclamation. He appeared irritated by the placidity and good humour of the others. His nerves were evidently on edge, and while my Lord Stour, with the egoism peculiar to Lovers, became absorbed in whispering sweet nothings in Lady Barbara's ears, Lord Douglas took to pacing up and down the Room like some impatient Animal.
I watched the three of them with ever-growing interest. Being very sensitive to outward influences, I was suddenly obsessed with the feeling that through some means or other these three Persons, so far above me in station, would somehow become intermixed with my Life, and that it had suddenly become my Duty to watch them and to listen to what they were saying.
I had no desire to pry upon them, of course; so I pray You do not misunderstand nor condemn me for thus remaining hidden behind the screen and for not betraying my Presence to them all. Certainly my Lord Stour and Lord Douglas Wychwoode had known at one time that I was in the Room. They had seen me installed in the window-recess, with the treasonable Manifestos which I had been set to copy. But since then the two Gentlemen had obviously become wholly oblivious of my Presence, and the Lady Barbara did not of course even know of my Existence, whilst I did not feel disposed to reveal myself to any of them just yet.