It was an evil fate that led Lady Doris to choose that suit of rooms.
CHAPTER LIII.
A YOUNG LADY PLEASANTLY OCCUPIED.
A few days afterward the Earl of Linleigh, with his daughter, went to London. He had decided not to go to his own house, which was one of the most beautiful mansions in Hyde Park—Hyde House. They were going simply on business, and would spend the greater part of their time driving from one store to another. The first visit, of course, was to Madame Francoise, to whom the earl explained that his daughter required, in one word, everything needful for a young lady of rank and position.
"It will take many hours, Doris," said the earl; "such things cannot be hurried. I can leave you here while I drive on to my lawyer's, to transact some business with him. Remember, my darling, you have carte blanche—every whim to be gratified."
Then he drove away, leaving her with Madame Francoise. How forcibly it recalled to her the time when Lord Vivianne had done the self-same thing.
"Truly," she laughed to herself, "history repeats itself. How little then did I foresee this."
So little that if even in a dream she could have been warned of it, she would never have spoken to Lord Vivianne.
"Never mind," she said to herself, with the light-hearted insouciance of her race. "Never mind, no one knows—nothing will come of it; but it would certainly be a relief to me to hear that Lord Charles Vivianne was dead."
The pity of it was that Lord Charles could not hear the remark; it would have given him a lesson that he would not have forgotten.