Stella clung to him for a moment with a little reluctant sigh, then she looked up at him with a smile.
"I am afraid I am awfully tumbled and tangled," she said, putting her hand to her hair.
He smoothed the silken threads with his hand, and as he did so drew the rose from her hair.
"This is mine," he murmured, and he put it in his coat.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "And this is how you keep our secret! Do you not think every eye would notice that great rose, and know whence it came?"
"Yes, yes, I see," he said. "After all, a woman is the one for a secret—the man is not in the field; but then it will be safe here," and he put the rose inside the breast of his coat.
Then trying to look as if nothing had happened, trying to look as if the whole world had not become changed for her, Stella sauntered into the drawing-room by his side.
And it really seemed as if no one had noticed their entrance. Stella felt inclined to congratulate herself, not taking into consideration the usages of high breeding, which enable so many people to look as if they were unaware of an entrance which they had been expecting for an hour since.
"No one seems to notice," she whispered behind her fan, but Lord Leycester smiled—he knew better.
She walked up the room, and Lord Leycester stopped before a picture and pointed to it; but he did not speak of the picture—instead, he murmured: