She looked at her dress, but there was a sudden significance in her slow, lingering response.
"I—don't—know!"
As she went up the stairs she looked over the rail and saw Stafford's tall figure striding down the hall. He was softly pulling the terrier's ears and talking to it in the language dogs understand and love; and when she sank into a chair in her room, his face with its manly tenderness was still before her, his deep musical voice, with its note of protection and succour, still rang in her ears.
She sat quite motionless for a minute or two, then she rose and went to the glass and looked at herself; a long, intent look.
"Yes, I am beautiful," she murmured, not with the self-satisfaction of vanity, but with a calculating note in her voice. "Am I—am I beautiful enough?"
Then she swung away from the glass with the motion which reminded Howard of a tigress, and, setting her teeth hard, laughed with self-scorn; but with something, also, of fear in the laugh.
"I am a fool!" she muttered. "It can't be true. So soon! So suddenly!
Oh, I can't be such a fool!"
CHAPTER XVII.
If everybody was not enjoying himself at the Villa it certainly was not the fault of the host, Sir Stephen Orme. Howard, as he drew his chair up beside Stafford, when the ladies had left the room after dinner, and the gentlemen had begun to glance longingly at the rare Chateau claret and the Windermere port, made a remark to this effect:
"Upon my word, Staff, it is the most brilliant house-party which I have ever joined; and as to your father in his character of host—Well, words fail to express my admiration."