"Oh, dear Lady Tilchester," I said, "you have been so kind and good to me already I shall never forget it. And I am a stranger, too, and yet you have troubled about me."
"I liked you from the first moment we met, at the Tilchester ball.
And Antony is so interested in you, and we are such dear old friends
I should always be prejudiced in favor of any one he thought worth
liking."
There were numbers of things I wished to ask her, but somehow my tongue felt tied. It was almost a relief when she turned the conversation.
Soon the daylight faded and the servants brought lamps.
"It is almost five," she said, at last "What a happy afternoon we have had! I know you ever so much better now, dear. Well, I suppose the time has come to put on tea-gowns and descend to see how affairs are progressing."
I rose.
"I am going to call you Ambrosine," she said, and she kissed me. "I am not given to sudden friendships, but there is something about your eyes that touches me. Oh, dear, I hope fate will not force you to commit some mid-summer madness, as I did, to regret to the end of your days!"
All the way to my room her words puzzled me. What could she mean?
XII
The scene was picturesque and pretty as I looked at it from the gallery that crosses the hall.