“Ah, you are a very woman after all. I was beginning to be afraid you were rather too superior to our poor common clay.”
“But you are quite wrong if you think——”
“I don’t think anything; I never did. I have been a soldier, you know, not a philosopher. I can act, you see; I could run down to Carstow to fetch you; but having done so, I have for the time given up all thought about our errand, and the numerous difficulties this business has thrown me into.”
“Indeed!” said Deborah gravely, “I can’t think about it clearly; it has come upon me like a misfortune which one has dreamed about all night and which happens in the daytime.”
Lord St. Austell shivered, and Deborah saw that his face had turned quite grey, and that his eyes moved restlessly, as if trying to escape the sight of some haunting object. He opened one of the pile of papers he had hastily bought at the station, and asked her opinion upon one of the public topics of the day. But that his mind was more burdened by the object of their journey than he chose to confess was proved by a remark into which he burst quite abruptly after a long silence.
“This young scamp Rees has a wonderful fascination about him. He has bewitched one of my own daughters. I caught them together last night at the house of some miserable little snob.”
“Lady Marion?” said Deborah quietly.
“What? You have heard?”
“Oh, that has been well known for a long time.”
“To every one but me, I suppose?”