"Pardon me, I told you that Lieutenant Kingsland offered to get her a cup of tea."
"Well."
"But they went in the opposite direction."
"I won't detain you any longer, Mr. Stanley." The Dowager's tone was frigid. "If my daughter is in Lieutenant Kingsland's charge, I feel quite safe about her. She could not be in better hands."
The Secretary bowed and went on his way rejoicing, and his way, in this instance, led him to his lodgings.
"I wonder why she is so down on me and so chummy with Kingsland," he thought. "If she'd seen him on my launch on the Thames, she might think twice before entrusting her daughter to his charge. Well, it's none of my business, any more than my affairs are the business of Lady Isabelle."
He was just a little annoyed at the persistency with which his friends joined in crying down a woman, who, whatever her faults might be, possessed infinite fascination, and was, he honestly believed, not half so bad as she was painted. He told himself that he must seek the first opportunity that circumstances gave him at Mrs. Roberts' house-party, to have a serious talk with Miss Fitzgerald and warn her, as gently as he could, of what was being said about her. Then he recollected with a start, that he had decided not to go, that he had promised to write a refusal and—no, that he had not written. He would do so at once. His latch-key was in his hand.
He opened the door. There was his valet, Randell, standing in the hall, but with a look on his face which caused Stanley to question him as to its meaning, before he did anything else.
"Puzzled? I am a bit puzzled. That's a fact, sir," Randell replied to his question. "And it's about that lady," indicating the Secretary's sitting-room with a jerk of his thumb.
"What lady?"