The girl smiled. "On the contrary, he is very poor."
"Dear me! I seem to have found a paragon of virtue. But are you not rather foolish, my dear girl? With such a face and such a figure and with my influence you should make a better match."
"So I tell her," cried Hale quickly; he was always on the watch to put in a word, "and she is not really engaged, Lady Charvington. There is some disagreement between Lesbia and Mr. Walker."
"What a horrid name! So plebeian!" cried Lady Charvington.
"George is not plebeian," said Lesbia, colouring hotly, "his father was the Honourable Aylmer Walker."
"Lord Casterton's third son," said the visitor, nodding. "Yes, I have heard of him from my brothers. He was rather wild, was he not?"
"Really I don't know."
"There is no chance of his coming in for the title--your George, I mean," prattled on Lady Charvington, "as Aylmer Walker's two elder brothers have both heaps and heaps of children. I rather think that Aylmer was the black ba-ba of the family. Well, there, I'm talking scandal, a thing of which I highly disapprove. Go and get your things on, dear, and tell your man to put your box on the motor. Wilkins will help him. He's the chauffeur--not at all a bad driver, but oh, so dreadfully reckless. Be prepared to go like the wind, my dear."
Lady Charvington babbled on in this fashion with bird-like glances here and there, taking in every detail of the room. She knew that Hale was a poor relation of her husband's, and indeed had received him twice or thrice at The Court near Maidenhead. But this was the first time she had seen his daughter and, but for the express command of Lord Charvington, she would not have asked her over. There was some comfort in the fact that the girl's affections were engaged, but all the same, such beauty, whether free or bound, would prove dangerous. "I trust she won't interfere with my men," thought Lady Charvington as she smiled sweetly on Lesbia leaving the tiny drawing-room.
The girl summoned Tim to take her box to the motorcar which was panting violently at the door, and went to her room to put on her hat. She made a desperate attempt while doing so to overcome her dislike to Lady Charvington, as she felt sure that for some reason the little woman was hostile. Lesbia was too unsophisticated to put down the hostility to the fact that Lady Charvington found her exasperatingly beautiful, and was puzzled to think why any hostility should exist. But it certainly was there, and Lesbia detected it immediately. However, as she could see no reason for any such feeling existing between her and a woman who--on the face of it--was doing her a kindness, she fought desperately with her intuition. Still it seemed to her that she was but leaving one abode of trouble to go to another, wherein even more annoying things might happen. And the root of all the worry was the missing cross.