"Lord Blair," broke in the old lady.
"Exactly—as Lord Blair," laughed Margaret. "And now I am going out to hear the nightingales, grandma. We haven't any nightingales in London—not of your sort, I mean. Ours haven't nice voices at all, and they mostly sing 'We won't go home till morning,' or 'He's a jolly good fellow,' and their voices sound rather unsteady as they go along the pavement. Those are the London kind of nightingale! Oh, what a lovely night——"
"Put a shawl on, Madge!" called the old lady. "Come back now; I can't have you catching cold the very first night!"
"Shawl? I haven't such a thing!" laughed Margaret. "This will do, won't it?" and catching up an antimacassar she threw it round her shoulders and ran out.
Dinner at Leyton Court was a stately function. Very often the earl, as Mrs. Hale had said, would make his meal of a morsel of fish or a tiny slice of mutton, but all the same an elaborate menu was prepared, and the courses were served with due state and ceremony by the butler and two footmen.
This night, in honor of Lord Blair, the dinner was more elaborate than usual; Mr. Stibbings had selected his choicest claret, and a bottle of '73 Pommery, and had himself superintended its icing. Already, although he had only been in the house a few hours, the young man had won the hearts of the servants!
But notwithstanding the choice character of the wines and the elaborate menu, Lord Blair seemed rather absent-minded and preoccupied. The earl was silent, almost grimly so, but the young man seemed not grim by any means, but dreamy. The fact was that the face of the young girl who had called him a savage yesterday, and whom he had seen again in the gallery this evening, was haunting him.
And—he wondered when and how he could see her again.
Of course he knew, as well as did Mrs. Hale, that there should be no acquaintanceship between Viscount Leyton and the granddaughter of his uncle's housekeeper, but he did not think of that, and, if he had, the reflection would not have stifled the desire to find her out and get a few more words from those sweet lips, one more smile or glance from the lovely eyes.
So that, what with Lord Blair being Margaret-haunted, and the earl being possessed by the fact of his nephew's wickedness, the grand dinner was anything but hilarious.