Rhoda was waiting in the hall, having been apprised that she was expected to join them at dinner. During Lady Sarah’s absence Sir Robert had dined alone, and she had, by Caryl’s earnest request, dined in the room adjoining his bedroom, with the door open so that he might see her from his little bed.
In the first glance she exchanged with Sir Robert, Rhoda was shrewd enough to see that the ingratiating Lady Sarah had made mischief for her. Sir Robert was, indeed, more ashamed of his own obtuseness in not having recognised in the accomplished woman the half-fledged girl of ten years before, than imbued with his wife’s suspicions of her. But what she had told him was enough to cause some alteration in his manner, and poor Rhoda felt the difference keenly.
Sir Robert had a horror of anything that recalled the murder of Langton, or the disagreeable rumours which had ensued. And the consequence was that during dinner he was taciturn and appeared almost morose, so that the conversation was left almost entirely to Lady Sarah and Rhoda.
When the ladies left the room he remained in the dining-room, but Lady Sarah, who was just as sweet as ever to Rhoda, excused herself from another tête-à-tête with the girl by saying that she knew her husband was sulking about something, and that she must go and have it out with him.
When Sir Robert, therefore, left the dining-room to join the ladies in the drawing-room, he found himself intercepted by Lady Sarah, who, sliding her hand along his sleeve in her most caressing manner, told him she wanted a talk with him, and led him off to his study.
Sir Robert had been married long enough to the capricious beauty to know that a raid of this kind always had its object. As soon, therefore, as they had reached the large and lofty apartment known as the study, he gently withdrew his arm, and placing an easy chair for her, threw himself into another, and said, not unkindly, but with an air of resignation:
“Well, and what is it you want now, my dear?”
Lady Sarah laughed with a very pretty appearance of confusion.
“Now, that’s unkind,” she said. “I’m sure I don’t want anything but the pleasure of seeing how well and happy you look. I think, Bertie, it suits you for me to be away!”
He shrugged his shoulders slightly.