The countess looked quickly from one to the other with a grave intentness that did not escape either. There was something more than mere badinage in this—something which she did not at all understand. Then Lady Doris saw that she had made a mistake in trying to expose him—she must not play with edged tools.
Lady Linleigh left them, not feeling quite satisfied. Why should he speak in that contemptuous manner of women, to a woman who was so young, so beautiful? It was not chivalrous—it was not even gentlemanly. And Lady Doris' manner puzzled her too; it was as though she wished to expose Lord Vivianne, to make others think evil of him. She could not forget the little circumstance.
"Yet it must be a fancy of mine," she thought. "They have so seldom met, they know so little of each other, there can be nothing but the most commonplace acquaintance between them."
Still it made her curious, and she purposely selected Lord Vivianne to take her down to dinner, in order that she might, after a little diplomatic fashion of her own, question him.
"How do you think Lady Studleigh is looking?" she asked him, when they had a chance for a few quiet words. "She was not well at all when we left London."
"I think her looking as beautiful as it is possible for any one to look," he replied, "and as well."
"I am glad you think so. It must have been a great privation for her to leave London in the very midst of the season, or, I should say, in the midst of a brilliant finale."
"Yes; I do not remember, of late years, any one who created such a furor as Lady Studleigh," was his reply.
"You met her often during the season?"
"Yes, I met her very frequently; it was impossible to go much into society without doing so—she was an unusual favorite."