Then she remembered, and quickly stepped out of the motor.
The great doors of Riverscourt stood wide. A ruddy light from the blazing log fire in the hall, streamed out over the newly fallen snow.
Old Rodgers, deferential, yet very consciously paternal, his hands shaking with suppressed excitement, stood just within.
The housekeeper, expectant and alert, a bow of white satin ribbon in a prominent position in her cap, waited at the foot of the wide oak staircase.
The poodle, his tufts tied up with white ribbon, moved forward to greet his mistress; then advanced gravely into the portico, and inspected the empty motor. The poodle's heart was in the grave of Uncle Falcon. Weddings did not interest him. But the non-arrival of the bridegroom—who had once, with a lack of discrimination quite remarkable, even in a human being, mistaken him for Mrs. Marmaduke Vane—seemed a fact which required verification and investigation. The poodle returned, smiling, from his inspection of the empty interior of the motor. He had not paid much attention to the lengthy discussions in the servants' hall. But this much he knew. Old Rodgers had won his bet. The housekeeper would have to pay. This pleased the poodle, who resented the fact that the housekeeper had first trimmed her own cap, and then tied him up with the remnants;—adding to this obvious slight, a callous disregard of his known preference for green or crimson, where the colour of his bows was concerned.
As Diana entered the house, the old clock in the hall began to strike six; distant Westminster chimes sounded from an upper landing; an unseen cuckoo jerked out its note six times, then slammed its door; while the old clock, measured and sonorous, refusing to be either hurried or interrupted, slowly finished its six strokes.
Diana flung her cloak to Rodgers, and ordered tea in the library. Then, with a greeting to her housekeeper, she passed upstairs to her own room.
Mrs. David Rivers had come home.