‘Because, if so, I must not take you in. She has a rule against all presentations on Sundays—they are only her intimates she receives on that day. We shall have to return as we came.’
‘Not for worlds. Pray let me not prove an embarrassment. You can make your visit, and I will go back on foot. Indeed, I should like a walk.’
‘On no account! Take the carriage, and send it back for me. I shall remain here till afternoon tea.’
‘Thanks, but I hold to my walk.’
‘It is a charming day, and I’m sure a walk will be delightful.’
‘Am I to suppose, Lady Maude,’ said he, in a low voice, as he assisted her to alight, ‘that you will deign me a more formal answer at another time to the words I ventured to address you? May I live in the hope that I shall yet regard this day as the most fortunate of my life?’
‘It is wonderful weather for November—an English November, too. Pray let me assure you that you need not make yourself uneasy about what you were speaking of. I shall not mention it to any one, least of all to “my lord”; and as for myself, it shall be as completely forgotten as though it had never been uttered.’
And she held out her hand with a sort of cordial frankness that actually said, ‘There, you are forgiven! Is there any record of generosity like this?’
Atlee bowed low and resignedly over that gloved hand, which he felt he was touching for the last time, and turned away with a rush of thoughts through his brain, in which certainly the pleasantest were not the predominating ones.
He did not dine that day at Bruton Street, and only returned about ten o’clock, when he knew he should find Lord Danesbury in his study.