“What an awful thing!” exclaimed Aunt Lil. “I will stay too, if the girls don’t mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel that he has friends on the spot, standing by him. I’ve got thousands of engagements—we all have—but I shall telegraph to everybody. What about you, Lord Bob?”
“I’ll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart,” said he, his nice though not very clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his blue, wide-apart eyes watching me rather wistfully. “Dundas and I have never been intimate, but he’s a fine chap, and I’ve always admired him. He’s sure to come out of this all right.”
Poor Lord Robert! I hadn’t much thought to give him then; but dimly I felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in past days.
I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I should have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem to think it strange that I had nothing to say.
“I suppose you won’t try to do anything until after lunch, will you, Mountstuart?” Lord Robert went on to ask.
“No, we must eat, and talk things over,” said Uncle Eric.
We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened?
But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions.
For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, of which he didn’t wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been that.
It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who had been his rival.