I answered, that Sir Gordon had gone over to the Brianza for a day; that Miss Howard had been confined to her room, but, I was certain, had only to learn her arrival to dress and come down to her.
“Is this said de bonne foi?” said she, with a smile where the expression was far more of severity than sweetness. “Are you treating me candidly, Mr. Templeton? or is this merely another exercise of your old functions as Diplomatist?”
I started, partly from actual amazement, partly from a feeling of indignant shame, at the accusation; but, recovering at once, assured her calmly and respectfully that all I had said was the simple fact, without the slightest shade of equivocation.
“So much the better,” said she gaily; “for I own to you I was beginning to suspect our worthy friends of other motives. You know what a tiresome world of puritanism and mock propriety we live in, and I was actually disposed to fear that these dear souls had got up both the absence and the illness not to receive me.”
“Not to receive you! Impossible!” said I, with unfeigned astonishment. “The Howards, whom I have always reckoned as your oldest and most intimate friends——”
“Oh, yes! very old friends, certainly: but remember that these are exactly the kind of people who take upon them to be severer than all the rest of the world, and are ten times as rigid and unforgiving as one’s enemies. Now, as I could not possibly know how this affair might have been told to them——”
“What affair? I’m really quite in the dark to what you allude.”
“I mean my separation from Favancourt.”
“Are you separated from your husband, Lady Blanche?” asked I, in a state of agitation in strong contrast to her calm and quiet manner.
“What a question, when all the papers have been discussing it these three weeks! And from an old admirer, too! Shame on you, Mr. Templeton!”