“My lord is very good and kind,” she murmured.
“And we must run down to Gloucestershire to have a peep at your Hall.”
It was thus comfortably settled that Lois should remain with the friends who had been so kind and considerate to her.
“Does she care for anybody? or is she still heart-free?” Lady Quaintree asked herself.
Almost unconsciously, the good lady was meditating how she could find out without committing herself or compromising her dignity.
If wit or diplomacy could manage it, she was resolved on securing her favorite as a wife for her son, though a couple of days before she would not have thanked the soothsayer who might have told her that such an event was looming in the future as a marriage between Lois and Gerald.
CHAPTER XI.
PAUL DESFRAYNE’S WIFE.
Lady Quaintree did not let excitement interfere with her usual plans and daily arrangements. She had settled that they should go on Saturday—the day after that one so memorable in Lois’ life—to the Zoological Gardens to hear the band play; and, accordingly, at about four o’clock, she set off with Lois and her son in the carriage.
To Lois it all appeared as a dream. Everything was the same, yet how different! Only a week ago had she attended her patroness to this gay scene, then as her paid if esteemed and indulged dependent. Now how was everything altered! Her very attire proclaimed that the tide of events had swept over her. She thought to keep her head steady, to stand unchanged, but it was difficult. It is as dangerous looking over an abyss clothed with all the flowers of spring, illumined by the golden rays of the morning sun, as to peer down from the black, beetling brow of a precipice, jagged and repellent.