She faced the green eyes with an odd little feeling of shame. They seemed to see so much that she hid from all the world.
"You are very--punctual," she said, with an effort, as she turned to greet the local doctor. "I hope you found the car ready at the station."
"We were driven up by his lordship himself," said Capper.
She gave a great start. "O! Has he come down? I didn't know."
"He joined us at the terminus quite unexpectedly," Capper told her. "I have brought my assistant Rafford to administer the anæsthetic. Rafford, where are you?"
A dark young man, with absolutely black eyes and a high, dominant forehead, turned sharply from a rapt contemplation of Saltash's Captured Angel, and bowed automatically to Maud.
"I was just trying to make out the anatomy of those wings," he said, in a very pronounced American accent. "Guess it's a cute addition to the human frame, but I'd like to know how it's worked from the spinal column without an extra vertebra or two."
Maud suddenly felt hysterical. She looked at Capper, who pulled at his beard and smiled.
"Guess it's up to you to find the solution, Raff," he said.
Rafford bowed again. "I'd like to make a sketch of that figure if Lady Saltash will permit me," he said. "It's an anatomical problem."