"Oh, are you 'Madge'? Of course, I've heard about you." Miss Ellis put out a hand.
Madge gave it a muscular shake and let go quickly. "How do?"
The stranger seemed not to notice. She accepted a double wedge of buttered scone from Bobby, and with great cheerfulness she deposited three lumps of sugar in her tea.
Miss von Schwarzenberg raised her eyes to Napier's face. He and Julian, several yards away, were leaning against the mantel-piece, pretending to discuss the Ulster situation.
As Miss von Schwarzenberg, across her friend, met Napier's look, she smiled ever so faintly, but with enormous meaning. "Behold a child of nature," the look said. Then, "Did you have a good passage, Nanchen?" she asked.
"Well, they said it was a bad passage. I thought it perfectly glorious." Miss Ellis had taken a large slab of shortbread. Rapid disposal of it did not at all interfere with a description of the amenities of an unchaperoned sea voyage. Miss Ellis did not pause till, to the accompaniment of a crunch of gravel and voices outside, two young men could be descried coming up the middle of the drive. They were leading a couple of great, long-bodied, white dogs.
The hall was instantly a hive of excitement. Bobby and Madge bolted out as one, with cries of rapture. Lady McIntyre, hardly less pleased, prepared to follow, with Julian. Napier sauntered slowly after them.
The elder Pforzheim entered with his brisk ceremoniousness, and bowed low over Lady McIntyre's hand: "My father has sent you those Russian boarhounds he promised. Ernst has got them outside"—he stood back in that empressé way of his that seemed to say, "My manners are far too perfect not to suffer others to precede." And the others, in the careless English way, did precede. They even blocked up the entrance, leaving Mr. Carl and his politeness in the rear. This manœuver so obstructed the view that Miss Ellis rose and came a few paces nearer, hoping for a better sight of those exciting animals. Napier, glancing back, saw that Miss von Schwarzenberg sat perfectly still.
"Did you ever see boarhounds before, Greta? I never did."
What Greta answered, Napier didn't hear; but the moment was not lost upon him when, all view of the spectacle being quite shut out by the crowding at the door, Miss Ellis' attention—about to return to the tea-table—"caught," as it were, on Carl Pforzheim's profile.