Drake looked round for the duchess.
"I must take the duchess in to supper," he said apologetically. "I will find some one for you—or perhaps you will wait until I will come for you?"
"I will wait, of course," she said, with a tender emphasis on the "of course."
Those who had been listening followed Drake and the duchess to the supper room, talking of the wonderful violin playing as they went; and Lady Luce seated herself in a recess and waited. Several men came to her and offered to take her to supper, but she made some excuse for refusing, and presently Drake returned.
She rose and took his arm, and glanced up at him, not for the first time that evening, curiously. The easy-going, indolent Drake of old seemed to have disappeared, and left in his place this grave and almost stern-mannered man. She had always been just a little afraid of him, with the fear which is always felt by the false and shifty in the presence of the true and strong; and to-night she was painfully conscious of that vague and wholesome dread.
He found a place for her at a small table, and a footman brought them things to eat and drink; but though she affected a blythe and joyous mood, tapping her satin-clad foot to the music which had begun again, she was too excited, too anxious, to enjoy the costly delicacies before her.
"I have so much to tell you, Drake!" she said, in a low voice, after one or two remarks about the ball and its success. "It seems years, ages, since I saw you! Why—why did you go away for so long, Drake? And why did you not write to me?"
He looked at her with his grave eyes, and her own fell.
"I wrote to no one; I was never much of a hand at letter writing," he said.
"But to me, Drake!" she whispered, with a pout. "I wanted to hear from you so badly! Just a line that would have given me an excuse for writing to you and telling you—explaining——"