'You spoke of riding to Fallow field. Is it possible you don't want me to bring my friend here? There's time to prevent it.'
Judged by the Countess de Saldar, the behaviour of this well-born English maid was anything but well-bred. She absolutely shrugged her shoulders and marched a-head of him into the conservatory, where she began smelling at flowers and plucking off sere leaves.
In such cases a young man always follows; as her womanly instinct must have told her, for she expressed no surprise when she heard his voice two minutes after.
'Rose! what have I done?'
'Nothing at all,' she said, sweeping her eyes over his a moment, and resting them on the plants.
'I must have uttered something that has displeased you.'
'No.'
Brief negatives are not re-assuring to a lover's uneasy mind.
'I beg you—Be frank with me, Rose!'
A flame of the vanished fire shone in her face, but subsided, and she shook her head darkly.