“I will give this packet, not to my wife, but to your husband, madam,” said he in a very low voice. At that moment Lord Florencecourt’s footsteps were heard outside the door, and George added: “I shall not have to wait for an opportunity.”
Upon the first sound of her husband’s tread, the lady had visibly quailed, in spite of her Amazonian reputation: as he entered the room, and with a searching glance seemed to take in at once the chief features of the situation, she made an attempt to walk majestically to the door.
“Stop,” said he, raising his hand a very little way; “I want to speak to you. Mr. Lauriston,” he went on, turning formally to the young man, who noticed that his nervousness of the morning had given place to a look of steady determination, “if my wife has had the folly and bad taste to insult you, I apologise for her, and beg that you will take no steps consequent upon her impertinence until you have first had an interview with me.”
“I shall be glad to have that interview as soon as possible, Lord Florencecourt, as I must leave your house this morning.”
“In five minutes, if you like. In the meantime, if you wish to ask questions about that infernal gewgaw,” and he looked savagely at the necklace, which George had torn from its covering, “I will tell you at once I did not give it to your wife, as Lady Florencecourt persists in imagining, but I sold it to a dealer without the least idea what was to become of it. Are you satisfied?”
“As to your share in the matter, my lord, perfectly.”
“As for my wife, she shall apologise to you herself.”
“There is no need for any apology,” said George, without condescending to look in the direction of the lady. “I am quite satisfied with your explanation.”
He left the husband and wife together, and finding Nouna, who was in a state of tearful anger against the dragon, he helped her to pack her trunk, and then filled and fastened his own portmanteau. These tasks were scarcely finished when Lady Florencecourt, pale, trembling, meek as a startled lamb, her eyes red with violent crying, her whole manner so utterly subdued and abject as to make one doubt her identity, knocked at the door, and finding them engaged in packing, begged them most earnestly to forget her impatience of the morning and to stay, as they had intended, until the Monday. Poor Nouna was so much affected by the evident distress of this haughty personage, that she burst into tears and put her arms round her, assuring her that she had not noticed any impatience at all, and that she would be glad to stay. But George, whose masculine nature was not so easily melted, persisted quietly but firmly that they were obliged to return to London at once. Whereupon Lady Florencecourt extracted a promise from Nouna that she would come to dinner as soon as they should all return to town.
“Oh yes,” said Nouna readily, “I want to see the dear boys again; I always like boys, but I never liked any so well as Regie and Bertie.”