Lord Leycester shook his head.
"Not to-night, Charlie."
Lord Charles looked at him, then laughed, and withdrew his head.
Leycester sauntered down the hall and back again; he felt very restless and disinclined for bed; Stella's voice was ringing in his ears, Stella's lips still clung with that last soft caress to his. He could not face the laughter and hard voices of the billiard-room; it would be profanation! With a sudden turn he went lightly up the stairs and entered his own room.
Throwing himself into a chair, he folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, to call up a vision of the girl who had rested on his breast—whose sweet, pure lips had murmured "I love you!"
"My darling!" he whispered—"my darling love! I have never known it till now. And I shall see you to-morrow, and hear you whisper that again, 'I love you!' And it's ME she loves, not the viscount and heir to Wyndward, but me, Leycester! Leycester—it was a hard, ugly name until she spoke it—now it sounds like music. Stella, my star, my angel!"
Suddenly his reverie was disturbed by a knock at the door. With a start, he came back to reality, and got up, but before he could reach the door it opened, and the countess came in.
"Not in bed?" she said, with a smile.
"I have only just come up," he replied.
The countess smiled again.