“Curse whom?” said May coolly.
“That husband of yours. I’ll pick a quarrel with him next time we play cards and shoot him.”
“Ha—ha—ha—ha—ha!”
It was a sweetly innocent sounding little trill of laughter as ever passed from a provoking pouting rosebud of a mouth; and Claire heard it, and turned paler than ordinary, as she saw in whose company her sister was.
“You will excuse me now, Lord Carboro’,” she said. “I have my duties as hostess to attend to.”
“One moment,” he said, placing his back to the company, and gazing with a look of such reverence as he had not for long years felt for woman in the sweet face before him.
Claire looked up at him half wonderingly.
“I am a very old friend of your father, Miss Denville.”
“Oh, yes, my lord. I remember you when I was quite a little child.”
“And now,” he said, “I am getting to be an old man, and you have grown into a beautiful woman. Will you—do not be alarmed; no one can see—will you accept this little offering from so old a friend, and wear it for his sake?”