"What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"It's only the scent," she explained, concealing a faint sense of irritation.
He smiled. "Don't you like it? I thought all women did."
"My dear Blake!" she said, and shuddered.
The next minute she threw a sharp look over her shoulder, suddenly assailed by an uncanny feeling that Nick was standing grimacing at her elbow. She saw his features so clearly for the moment with his own peculiarly hideous grimace upon them that she scarcely persuaded herself that her fancy had tricked her. But there was nothing but the twilight of the garden all around her, and Blake's huge bulk by her side, and she promptly dismissed the illusion, not without a sense of shame.
With a gesture of impatience she unfolded Lady Bassett's letter. It commenced "Dearest Muriel," and proceeded at once in terms of flowing elegance to felicitate her upon her engagement to Blake Grange.
"In according our consent," wrote Lady Bassett, "Sir Reginald and I have not the smallest scruple or hesitation. Only, dearest, for Blake Grange's sake as well as for your own, make quite sure this time that your mind is fully made up, and your choice final."
When Muriel read this passage a deep note of resentment crept into her voice, and she lifted a flushed face.
"It may be very wicked," she said deliberately, "but I hate Lady
Bassett."
Grange looked astonished, even mildly shocked. But Muriel returned to the letter before he could reply.