She would have felt still more puzzled if she could have overheard the conversation which took place immediately afterwards between Sir Robert and his wife. Lady Sarah went into her dressing-room, and, being able to dress in the most surprisingly rapid fashion when she chose, emerged thence a quarter of an hour later radiant and refreshed, in a clinging gown of golden-brown satin, veiled in net of gold thread, and trimmed with a huge bunch of red velvet flowers on the left hand side of her bodice. With a butterfly of gold thread in her dark hair, and a single row of big diamonds round her throat, Lady Sarah looked as beautiful as a Princess in a fairy tale.
She glided quickly down the stairs before the dinner-gong sounded, and presented herself in the study in a sort of whirlwind.
“Robert,” she said, “I have seen this lady whom you’ve engaged as companion to Caryl. Do you know who she is?”
The baronet was taken aback. His wife’s manner was much more earnest than usual; and he, accustomed to her little flippant ways and to her manner of making light of everything, could not understand the change in her.
“Who she is!” he repeated in a dazed way. “She’s a Miss Rhoda Pembury, and a most amiable and obliging young lady.”
Lady Sarah stamped her pretty foot impatiently.
“Yes, yes, of course I know that. It’s her métier to be obliging. But do you know who she is, and that she has introduced herself into the household on false pretences?”
Sir Robert looked amazed and incredulous.
“What false pretences?” stammered he at last.
She laid her hand impressively on his arm.