"You will not introduce me then, Philippa?"
"No--why should I? You would only disturb the child's dream."
Chapter XVII.
Lord Arleigh could not rest for thinking of the vision he had seen; the face of the duchess' companion haunted him as no other face had ever done. He tried hard to forget it, saying to himself that it was a fancy, a foolish imagination, a day-dream; he tried to believe that in a few days he should have forgotten it.
It was quite otherwise. He left Vere House in a fever of unrest; he went everywhere he could think of to distract his thoughts. But the fair face with its sweet, maidenly expression, the tender blue eyes with their rich poetic depths, the sweet, sensitive lips were ever present. Look where he would he saw them. He went to the opera, and they seemed to smile at him from the stage; he walked home in the starlight--they were smiling at him from the stars; he tried to sleep--they haunted him; none had followed him as those eyes did.
"I think my heart and brain are on fire," he said to himself. "I will go and look once again at the fair young face; perhaps if she smiles at me or speaks to me I shall be cured."
He went; it was noon when he reached the Duke of Hazlewood's mansion. He inquired for the duchess, and was told she had gone to Hampton Court. He repeated the words in surprise.
"Hampton Court!" he said. "Are you quite sure?"
"Yes, my lord," was the footman's reply. "Her grace has gone there, for I heard her talking about the pictures this morning."
He could hardly imagine the duchess at Hampton Court. He felt half inclined to follow, and then he thought that perhaps it would be an intrusion; if she had wanted his society, she would certainly have asked for it. No, he would not go. He stood for a few minutes irresolute, wondering if he could ask whether the duchess had taken her young companion with her, and then he remembered that he did not even know her name.