“And,” continued Mrs. Luttrell, “now that you have walloped the bishop of the diocese, for I understand that he made a terrible row about the domestic chaplain, I would, if I were in your place, get an archbishop to preside over the Church in the United States. The archbishop is clearly the next move in the game, after the domestic chaplain. One wants a little elegance now in religion, you know, and an archbishop is just twice as stylish as a mere bishop; and in time”—Mrs. Luttrell laid her hand approvingly on Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner’s imperial sable boa—“Lionel or Harold may live to be Archbishop Skinner. There isn’t any reason in the world why you people who have loads of money shouldn’t have everything you want. Don’t forget that, my dear Mrs. Skinner.”
Mrs. Skinner felt that she was being trifled with; so she laughed a little and moved away, saying: “I see Bishop Slater, the secretary’s brother, across the room, and I must speak to him. I think the secretary is a dear, and so is the bishop, so nice and high in his Church views.”
Mrs. Luttrell turned to face an accusing mentor in Richard Baskerville, who had heard a part of the “trying out” of Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner; but before he could speak he caught sight of Anne Clavering entering the wide doors. He had not thought to see her that day, feeling that what had passed between them in the brougham would keep her away from Mrs. Luttrell’s as a place where she would be certain to meet him; for Anne Clavering had all the delicate reserve which a man would wish in the woman he loves. Therefore, not expecting to see her, Baskerville had early in the day despatched to her a basket of violets and a brief note, in which he asked permission to speak at once to her father. He had received no reply, but expected one before he slept. Anne’s appearance, however, in Mrs. Luttrell’s drawing-room surprised him; she evidently sought him, and this she would not be likely to do unless she were in some emergency.
To Baskerville’s keen eye her face, glowing with an unusual color, her eyes, which were restlessly bright, betrayed some inward agitation. She was very beautifully dressed in velvet and furs, with more of magnificence than she usually permitted herself; and her white-gloved hand played nervously with a superb emerald pendant that hung around her neck by a jewelled chain. Baskerville was the first person who greeted her, and Mrs. Luttrell was the next.
“This is kind of you,” said the latter, all sweetness and affability. “It shows what a nice disposition you have, to come to me to-day, after the way my nephew made me kowtow to you yesterday. Richard, give Miss Clavering a cup of tea.”
Baskerville escorted Anne through the splendid suite of rooms, each speaking right and left and being stopped often to exchange a word with a friend or acquaintance. People smiled after the pair of them, as they do after a pair of suspected lovers. When they came to the high-arched lobby that led into the dining room, Baskerville opened a side door, partly concealed by a screen and a great group of palms, and showed Anne into a little breakfast room, which opened with glass doors on the garden. A hard-coal fire burned redly in the grate, and the dying sunset poured its last splendors through a huge square window. Baskerville shut the door, and Anne and he were as much alone as if they had the whole house to themselves.
“I have practised a gross fraud upon you about the tea,” said he, smiling; “but here is a chance for a few minutes alone with you—a chance I shall take whenever I can get it.” He would have taken her hand, but something in her face stopped him. She had protested and denied him the day before, when he told her of his love; but it had not stood materially in his way. Now, however, he saw in an instant there was something of great import that made a barrier between them.
“I wished very much to see you alone and soon; I came here to-day for that purpose,” she said. She spoke calmly, but Baskerville saw that it was with difficulty she restrained her agitation. “Yesterday,” she went on, “I told you what I feared about my father—“
“And I told you,” Baskerville interrupted, “that I would marry you if I could, no matter who or what your father is.”
“You were most generous. But you don’t know what I know about my father—I only found it out myself last night. I had an interview with him. There was something in a newspaper about his divorcing my mother.”