"Your dinner?" almost gasped the countess.
"I had some sent up to my room," said Lady Luce sweetly.
She looked round. Drake stood by the piano, his face sternly set. Why had she remained? What was she going to do? He glanced at Nell, and saw that she had gone white, and that her eyes were fixed on Lady Luce. What should he do?
Instinctively, he went to meet Luce, who was advancing with a placid smile, and the ease of a woman who is at peace with all the world, and sure of her welcome.
"How do you do, Lord Angleford?" she said, as if this were their first meeting for some time. "I am so glad that I was able to get here to-night, though I wish that I could have arrived earlier. But I am interrupting the music! Please don't let me!"
She moved away from him with perfect grace, and, greeting one and another, went and seated herself in a chair beside the duchess—and opposite Nell at the piano. There was a little buzz of conversation round her, then she herself raised her fan as a sign for silence, and Falconer began to play again.
It was well for Nell that she knew every note of the nocturne by heart, for the page of music swam before her eyes, and she could not see a note. She felt Lady Luce's gaze, rather than saw it, and her heart throbbed painfully for a while; but presently the influence of the music stole over her and helped her—if only Falconer could have known it!—and she said to herself: "What can it matter to me if she is here? I know that Drake loves me, and me alone; that she is nothing to him and I am everything. It is she who should feel confused and embarrassed, not I. And yet how calm, how serene she is! Can she have forgotten that night on the terrace? Can she have forgotten all that has happened? Yes, it is she whose heart should be beating as mine is now."
When the nocturne came to an end, and the applause which greeted it broke out, Lady Luce, still clapping her hands, rose and went toward Drake.
"Will you please introduce me to Miss Lorton?" she said. "I am all anxiety to know her."
She smiled at him so placidly that even Drake, who knew her better than did any other man, was completely deceived.