"I'm so small," he said, with a smile, "that no wonder Miss Mildmay overlooks me."
"Did I not shake hands?" said Violet, looking him full in the face, not with coldness, but with a pleasant, indifferent, painfully frank friendship. "Did I not? How stupid of me! But I was overwhelmed with surprise," and she gave him her hand with a cool, self-composed smile which staggered him.
Before three minutes had passed Lord Fitz plucked up courage to say:
"Miss Mildmay, you said you would show me your flowers."
"Did I?" said Violet. "Then I will redeem my promise," and, with a smile, she led him to the conservatory—that very conservatory in which Leicester had lounged but a few days ago, listening to her frank laughter and drinking in the charm of her youth and beauty.
With a blush of pleasure, Fitz walked off with her, and soon his boyish laugh could be heard from the greenhouses, joined with Violet's musical peal.
What had happened to cause her to treat him so?
Yesterday she was all frank delight in his presence.
To-day she treated him with the haughty insolence and indifference of a sultana.
"Ah!" said Leicester, with a growl. "They are all alike. The best of them cannot resist a lord."