Lady Lanswell continued:
"Your father is delighted over it; I cannot tell you how pleased he is."
Then Lord Chandos looked wonderingly around.
"Where is my father?" he said. "I have not seen him yet."
Lady Lanswell knew that he would not see him. The earl had fled ignominiously; he had declined to be present at the grand fracas between his wife and his son; he had left it all in my lady's hands.
"Your father had some business that took him away this morning; he knew that I could say for him all that he had to say."
Lord Chandos smiled, and the smile was not, perhaps, the most respectful in the world. My lady did not observe it.
"I am quite sure," he said, "that you can interpret all my father's ideas."
It was then, with her son's handsome face smiling down on her, that the countess grew pale and laid her hand, with instinctive fear, on the papers spread before her. She nerved herself for the struggle; it would never do to give way.
"I have other news for you, Lance," she said, and he looked with clear, bright, defiant eyes in her face.