Ask me no more."
—The Princess.
Almost as Cecil steps into her carriage, Sir Penthony Stafford is standing on her steps, holding sweet converse with her footman at her own hall-door.
"Lady Stafford at home?" asks he of the brilliant but supercilious personage who condescends to answer to his knock.
"No, sir." Being a new acquisition of Cecil's, he is blissfully ignorant of Sir Penthony's name and status. "My lady is hout."
"When will she be home?" Feeling a good deal of surprise at her early wanderings, and, in fact, not believing a word of it.
"My lady won't be at home all this morning, sir."
"Then I shall wait till the afternoon," says Sir Penthony, faintly amused, although exasperated at what he has decided is a heinous lie.
"Lady Stafford gave strict horders that no one was to be admitted before two," says flunkey, indignant at the stranger's persistence, who has come into the hall and calmly divested himself of his overcoat.
"She will admit me, I don't doubt," says Sir Penthony, calmly. "I am Sir Penthony Stafford."