No one rests long over the wine, nowadays; the earl scarcely drank a glass after the ladies left; he would fill his glass—fill two perhaps, but rarely did more than sip them. Lord Leycester would take a bumper of claret—the cellars were celebrated for the Chateau Margaux. To-night it seemed as if he had taken an additional one, for there was a deeper color on his face, and a brighter light in his eyes than usual; the light which used to shine there in his school-days, when there was some piece of wildness on, more mad than usual. Lord Guildford came in leaning lightly upon his arm, and he was talking to him in a low voice.
"One of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen, Ley: not your regular cut-out-to-pattern kind of face, but fresh and—and—natural. The sort of face Venus might have had when she rose from the sea that fine morning——"
"Hush!" said Lord Leycester, with a slight start, and he thought of the picture in his room, the picture of the Venus with the pale, fair face, across which he had drawn the defacing brush that night he had come home from his meeting with Stella. "Hush! they will hear you! Yes, she is beautiful."
"Yes, beautiful! Take care, take care, Ley!" muttered Lord Charles.
Leycester put his hand from him with a smile.
"You talk in parables to-night, Charlie, and don't provide the key. Go and get some tea."
He went himself toward the table and got a cup, but his eyes wandered round the room, and the old countess and Lady Wyndward noticed the searching glance.
"Leycester," said his mother, "will you ask Lenore to sing for us?"
He put down his cup and went down the room to where she was sitting beside the earl.
"My mother has sent me as one of her ambassadors to the queen of music," he said. "Will your majesty deign to sing for us?"